On the Road


When we hit the road of London in Peter’s car, London had recovered from the heavy rain of the night and welcomed us to a bright sunny morning. On my exclamation on the beautiful morning I was complemented by Peter being the lucky one to bring the sun. The next thing which absorbed me on my journey from Heathrow to Putney is the greenery both sides along the road. The beautiful shade of green (closer to the colour of tender leaves of banana) ran all throughout; sprinkled with small white and yellow flowers. The freshness of the air and the surrounding greenery was so infectious that all traces of tiredness just vanished.

Familiar to the crowded and noisy roads of Delhi, suddenly I realised that roads are abnormally quiet compared to back home though they are not empty. And then you notice the smoothly and noiselessly plying cars on the road – absolutely, I mean absolutely no sound on the road! You try to understand what is so obviously missing on that road and then it gradually comes to your conscious – complete absence of the continuous honking sound from one or other vehicle which is synonymous of the Delhi road, no trace of jarring sound of throttling engine, no sound of screeching tyres. Soon you notice that the traffic is very thin compared to Delhi road and almost uniform in terms of the types of vehicles plying – with no scooter, no motorcycle, no autorickshaw, no rickshaw.

Only different kind of cars and occasionally big vehicles were speeding away, nah! gliding away on the road. Searching for a comparison my mind rummaged through memory and brought back to the surface the long drive from Koraput to Jalaput in Orissa. That I used to undertake for the official visits to field office of Spread as a Programme Officer of ActionAid. With almost no traffic and one or two occasional cyclists crossing you at times the ambassador car used to speed away on a quiet road meandering through beautiful green landscapes.
--------------------------------------------------------------
After sometimes I realised that despite the road being smooth, straight and the traffic being thin also all the cars were within a speed limit. Are the people so disciplined here? Peter smiled and clarified – They have to. They are being monitored. Cameras are there at red light points for this purpose. Earlier when cameras were not digitalised, law keepers were having difficulties – camera reels used to finish and the law breakers were not being identified. But now you cannot escape! Human beings are everywhere same; they essentially try not to be bound by discipline, but fear hold back.

If somebody has sped beyond the stipulated speed and has been shot by the camera, what is the consequence? S/he pays up a steep fine of 60 pounds earn 3 penalty points on the driving license. If somebody earns a point of 12, then the license gets cancelled.

It is under a programme called London Safety Camera partnership. This is a road safety measure to reduce the causalities caused by speeding vehicles. The Partnership consists of five different institutions in London – 1. Transport for London, 2. Metropolitan Police Service, 3. City of London Police, 4. Her Majesty’s Courts service and 5. London councils.


Wondering how this kind of system will work in our own cities like Delhi and Mumbai? Well, certain Nandas and Khans probably will be able to tell better on the subject!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simple things of joy in life..

Image
I was feeling down and low. Recovering from a viral fever. As it happens with me often, something in me inspired to pull out my copy of Deepak Chopra 's book ' Ageless Body Timeless Mind ' and flip through randomly. It was about being with nature. Deepak talked about the value of being with nature, even if for a short while in the day. He talked about if got opportunity to lie down on grass stretching out the body and soak up some sun.  My body was aching severely, head was reeling and my mood was in depression. But a thought raced through my head like a lightning. I have developed and nurturing the small lawn in front of my house for last two years, but have never ever thought of lying down on the grass! Leave alone lying on it, I have not even sat on the bare grass on my lawn! I have this lovely little patch of green and the thought had never come! I tried to remember when was the last when I had stretched myself on green grass anywhere and it was years back! I gave
Read more

Pedestrian dignity

Image
Being a pedestrian on Delhi roads is not an easy task. It requires a lot of learning the unwritten rules and on the job skill up gradation for an individual to be a deft pedestrian. In many parts of the city pedestrian strips are rare luxury – either they are not there or broken or occupied by some street vendor etc. So one has to use of road sides for the purpose – a difficult task though; with parked vehicles royally gracing the road sides and occupying one fourth of the breadth of roads. So one has to have real mastery over all sensory organs to keep them alert and coordinated to walk on the available side of the road and avoid being hit by a speeding vehicle. Crossing the road requires even more skill. If you are standing at the zebra for safe crossing, you are doing that at your own peril and with time get wiser to the fact that speeding vehicles come to a screeching halt at the end of zebra instead of its beginning. Even if the signal is green you must walk fast or run to cove
Read more

If you had only a day to live?

Today I saw the film  '3 Idiots' again and enjoyd as thoroughly as I had during the first view. There are many angles to the movie and I have read those in the many critiques I have read. But for me it is about living life to the fullest - with #passion. Some time back my Coach asked me a powerful question - "If you had a day to live then how will you live that day?" A powerful reminder that the length of life is finite and life is to live. By this I am not saying that we have to be morbid, but just think are you enjoying your life? Does going to the office in the Monday morning fills you up with energy? Do you look forward to hit your office table and get going for the week? Are you spending time with the people you love? Do you remember which is the next festival in the calender and how you are going to celebrate this and with whom? Have you read those books which you wanted to read for quite some time? Have you seen that movie which you had planned but mi
Read more