Road Sense Is No Nonsense!

While lack of good driving skills is a major problem among our drivers, the other is our appalling road sense. It is highly discouraging and disappointing to note that even the dignified with license and experience do not opt to ‘halt and check’ both sides before entering a main road, or crossing an intersection. Many more will not avoid ‘reversing into’ a main road even if for warned

Drivers are often reluctant to slow down, put up their indicators and move to the left or right to get off the road or to turn right or left for a U turn . They would rather turn ‘much before’ a road intersection if there is no median. Many motorists do not use the indicators to forewarn the motorists following behind and some motorists in any case pay no heed to such proprieties. Eventually there is chaos all around.

While in some instances indicators have been made obsolete in several instances in India one will find truck drivers having cleaner assistants who will double up as a navigation assistants. They will assist the drivers who operate the trucks as beasts of road, by continuously waving their hands. It would challenge anybody’s wit to understand that gesture. It is anybody’s guess if he is guiding the driver or the vehicles passing close by. In any case the coordination between the driver and cleaner could be a myth and if some mishap occurs, the cleaner may be the first to vanish from the spot, if not the driver too. Less said and more ignored about this freakish arrangement would serve to road users better. For in most instances the waving could mean that the beast has the right of way and so ‘please keep off’. And God alone can save the other motorists if the communication between the driver and the cleaner misfires.

Between poor driving skills and lack of road sense the latter is far more dangerous. Inept driving does cause accidents, but our woeful bliss of road sense and traffic rules is the major cause of road accidents.

Abysmal road sense on the part of a few drivers potentially mean life and death for other road users. The rule abiding drivers, the dignified drivers, trained drivers, professional drivers, commercial drivers, women drivers, seasoned drivers, young drivers, old drivers, women drivers and service drivers are all put to great trouble and tribulations. Over-speeding, unsafe overtaking and tailgating together form a troika that experts the world over consider as the biggest cause for road accidents.