One bright morning, I was walking on the road towards my office in Chennai. I was not walking on the pavement, as I thought it was safer to walk close to the pavement than on it — what with the sewer lids kept open, a water tank in the middle of the pavement, and an eatery on the pavement.
In Chennai, maybe it is the same in most other cities in India, pavements are certainly not for pedestrians. I thought, “What if a blind person was walking on the pavement.” Even as I shuddered to think of it, a bike whizzed past me, in the same direction in which I was walking, almost knocking me down. I was wondering if I was on the wrong side of the road. The motorcyclist narrowly missed hitting the person walking in front of me. He was apparently in a hurry to reach his office on time. I wonder why vehicles, sometimes even bigger ones, are driven on the wrong side of the road. The drivers are not only risking their lives but pose a great danger to the pedestrians and other vehicles moving in the opposite direction. This invariably ends up in traffic snarls and frayed tempers.
Every person who drives his two-wheeler on the wrong side of the road considers it his right to do so. Sometimes, they take pride in this feat. But the moment a policeman is in the vicinity, they get off their vehicle and push it with all their might. Do we need a policeman to remind us of the rules and our responsibilities? Isn’t it the responsibility of each one of us to obey the rules irrespective of whether we are being watched or not? It is a shame that we cannot be good role models to our younger generation even in these small day-to-day activities.
