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.
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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!

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