Reckless is not a compliment

Gerald L. Harrison

On April 6, India’s poor driving attitudes affected Canada. A semi-trailer truck operated by Adesh Deol Trucking drove through a stop sign, equipped with a flashing light at 100 kmph and collided with a bus, killing 16 hockey team members and injuring 13 others. The collision devastated the small Canadian town of Humboldt, Saskatchewan and inspired relief donations from across Canada and around the world. 

So far, A GoFundMe page has raised more than 12 million dollars in support of the dead and injured and numerous corporations have donated to another sustaining fund for the victims. 

A recent news item reported that 27 students, out of 30, on a bus in northern India were killed because the speeding driver drove into a ravine. I hope something similar will be put together for the 27 students killed in the bus tragedy in India. 

During our seven visits to India, starting in 1977, my Patiala-born wife and I have enjoyed India’s legendary hospitality and have always enjoyed exploring the country’s magnificent ancient and modern architecture as well as its spectacular unparalleled music and dance culture. But during that time, we also witnessed India’s undisciplined road behaviour become increasingly lethal. 

Almost daily, The Tribune reports traffic fatalities caused by drivers who act as if pedestrians or people on two-wheelers are targets. These drivers ignore speed limits, are ignorant of proper lane discipline, and show contempt for seatbelt use. 

We do not drive while in India and when we insist that our drivers wear their seatbelts and restore the passenger belts hidden under the seats, a common response is, ‘Nobody uses seatbelts in India.’  This demonstrates total ignorance and that most vehicle deaths occur when unbelted car occupants are ejected from the vehicle. My response to the resistance is a question: How much weight can you lift? It is usually less than their body weight. Most are surprised to learn that a collision at 50 kmph will throw an unsecured passenger forward with a force of several tonnes—far more than even the strongest person could lift even if they could react in time. While unbelted front-seat occupants will be thrown through the windshield, unsecured rear seat passengers will be thrown forward with enough force to break the front seat mounts and crush its occupant to death. And an unbelted driver easily loses control of the vehicle in much less severe collisions.

 During our recent trip to Chandigarh, we observed two successive Haryana Roadways buses drive through red lights late at night because, ‘there was no one around’. Since the roads in and around Chandigarh are often dimly lit, if at all, collisions with pedestrians, bicycles, and vehicles with inoperative lights or no lights at all, are virtually guaranteed. Routinely, vehicles with non-functioning lights pass police checkpoints unchallenged. It makes one question the efficiency and efficacy of police!

Newspapers often mention Chandigarh’s traffic congestion. But while increased vehicle ownership is a contributing factor, undisciplined driving behaviour has been recognised as its major cause in India several decades ago. The immature ‘me first’ attitude among drivers adds to both, congestion and collision rate. 

While driver training is offered in Canadian high schools, I am not aware of any such initiative in Indian schools. Indeed, along the highways, one often sees a hastily scrawled sign hanging from a tree offering ‘Driver Training.’ What kind of training? To what standard? Who regulates it? 

India has the world’s highest vehicle collision rate and Punjab has the worst record in India. Much of this involves driver attitudes. I was once told that traffic signals are considered an ‘advisory” matter and could be ignored. Zebra-crossings mark many pedestrian crossings, but to use the one at the traffic lights just south of Sector 17-C, one must climb over a guardrail to access it. Drivers also routinely talk and text on cell phones and put others at risk.

First-time car owners tend to be the worst and least-skilled drivers, for they seem to think that erratic juvenile road behaviour and speeding are signs of status or manliness, as they weave erratically around other vehicles at highway speed, without signalling. Since, to my knowledge, the Indian Motor Vehicles Act is silent on pedestrian rights or right-of-way, it’s basically look both ways and run like hell. 

On one of our tours of India, we stopped our driver to remind him that the motorcyclist he nearly ran over had someone’s daughter and son on board!