Road rodeos lead to 40 confrontations per minute on our roads

If ‘Road Chaos’ were to be an Olympic sport there should be no doubt about the winner. While India will be the hot favourite for the gold medal, there will be handsome contributions from various states, among which Tamil Nadu will be a leader as it manages to kill more people on its roads than all states in India, except Uttar Pradesh. A representative of the National Road Safety Council under the aegis of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways was in the city over the weekend to explain why Tamil Nadu was so far ahead in terms of having killer roads or killers on the road driving killer vehicles.

Beyond the statistics, he may not have known that there is certain criminal intent behind driving in Tamil Nadu, which is all about getting on the offensive and taking on every other road user, flashing lights to get room and generally driving as if the government had simply forgotten to give everyone a siren and a red beacon light. As the saying goes, people around here drive at 40 confrontations a minute rather than 40 kmph. It can sometimes be so stressful as to drive expats out of India, but that is part of the challenge they take on when they choose to live here.

It appears everyone is exempt from traffic rules. But broadly there are six categories that are like the VIPs with the bells and whistles of office – 1. The MTC buses - There are no rules binding them to either passage on the road or stopping at the designated places known as bus stops. The traffic lights are an irritation for them rather than a disciplining measure. Woe betide you if you are a law-abiding citizen and are parked on red at a traffic junction. Your ears are likely to implode from the impatience of the transport drivers ready to take off at the merest sign of amber or green as if they were Formula 1 drivers on the grid.

The buses are quickly followed on this road users mayhem scale by 2. – The yellow Devils – The road is like a circus act for many of the daredevils. If they take a sudden U-turn when bowling along merrily in front of you, forgive them.

Their weakness is they believe anywhere the front wheel can go, the rest of their auto can too. And if their backsides are belching smoke enough to put us all in a miasma of automobile smoke, they must be granted some leeway since they are doing it only for a living. What an excuse!

Along with the dash of the information revolution came the urgent logistics of transporting thousands of people to offices and back home in a task that is not run with military precision so much as on a helter-skelter pattern that puts every other road user at risk. 3. The yellow boards running the IT guys to office or home are a modern phenomenon in the city. The yellow boards are a scary phenomenon at night when they drive as if their life depends on their saving a few minutes in dropping people home. The categories exempted from traffic rules are longer. 4.Water tankers are a breed unto themselves. Seasonal birds much like the migratory pelicans which come to warmer climes, the tankers are a summer menace with a high strike rate. Poorly maintained tankers running at high speeds to make as many trips as possible in a day with the heavy load of a few tons of water each trip adds to the braking hazards.

The fast & furious youngsters with fancy cars are night birds who think the city roads become a race track once the Cinderella Hour strikes. 5.Fancy cars testing their acceleration in the nocturnal hours are a threat to the parked vehicles and the homeless who are silent spectators to Chennai nights. While the accident that killed the young racer and his wife in their colourful BMW could be due to a tyre burst rather than sheer speed, what may have sealed their fate is in such computerised automobiles the doors cannot be opened once the computer shuts down. Add the fire hazards of a collision from dripping fuel and you have the complete picture of how city roads with their restrictive medians are not designed for quick accelerating cars.

The spirit of the young is never more displayed than in the freedom of riding two wheelers. 6.Weaving motorcycle riders who imagine the road is some kind of continuous rodeo event in which ducking and weaving out of traffic lanes is like enacting thrilling movie clips. It must be considered fortuitous that at least in the crowded city roads young people who risk life and limb are somewhat safe. The six categories of road users who feel no compulsion to follow road rules have made Tamil Nadu what it is with roads that are like jungles where animal power is on display.