Rule of the Road

If the traffic of a city is any indicator of the civic sense of the people, then the Bhubaneswarites have evolved distinctively. Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha, boasts of probably the finest roads in our country. The Stygian dark six lane pukka roads in most parts of the city is something which is very hard to find anywhere else. With such roads, the traffic in the city even at the busiest times of the day is really smooth... Or is it?

Most of the credit for this goes to our Auto Bhaiyas. Each of them own a Ferrari. They have the license to switch lane according to their will and stop anywhere on the road. But they can not be faulted for the same. There are people waiting to be picked up and dropped at those sappy locations. So basically it is the fault of the people who travel in auto-rickshaws. In any case the auto-rickshaws can't be held liable at all after taking pains to brandish "Please keep distance" in bold letters on the back side.

The traffic circles in our city cast some more light on the unique "Rule of the Road" in Bhubaneswar. After the signal changes to "RED", the unfortunate ones who come a couple of seconds late and do not have the guts to break the signal occupy the entire road along its width. Looking from front, they give you an impression of Stuntmania participants in a file ready to hit top gear as soon as the signal changes to "GREEN". Well no harm in being so racy as long as there is enough free road for others to take a left turn. But this is not usually the case. The entire road is blocked. You have to wait till others have moved even if you want to take left. If you are really pedantic, then this system will make a lot of sense. Why the hell would anyone give a chance to another person, who reached there after him, to leave the traffic square first? It would be unfair to the person who is waiting there if the second persons leaves before him. Even our constitution advocates this through "Right to equality".

There is also a special breed of commuters found on our city roads. The special talent of this breed is they will blow the horns of their vehicle almost anywhere and drive you go nuts. If caught in Red signal, they will start blowing horns as if the signal will turn Green immediately. If anyone is to be called or need to draw his/her attention on road, they will just blow the horn. This is not at all irritating. In fact, it is really important for all to know about this horn language and its variants to communicate with our fellow commuters in an effective way. This assumes even more importance since many of us don't possess the skill to ride and simultaneously talk over mobile phones.

This civic sense of us is very innate and rare. They are rich in tradition and sound in culture. We do have a good head start than most of the other fast developing cities in India. Let's keep this heritage of unique "Traffic(read terrific) Awareness" up and growing.