Sir,

Recently, a news item titled “No Helmet ? No Insurance? Then No Vehicle” in SOM drew my attention largely because for the first time we have heard about some kind of a deterrent to send the message home that you can’t always get away with all the traffic violations.

I personally wish to congratulate our Police Commissioner on this new measure. The subject is old and multi-dimensional. We are all witness to the many different efforts put forth by the Traffic Police, with different results.  The approach appears to be unfortunately cosmetic in its result because the targets are helmet-less riders and car drivers driving without seat belts.

Much more serious traffic violations causing fatalities are occurring elsewhere.  Road rage indulged in by young college boys and jumping the red light almost all the time by young and old are cause for concern.  Irresponsible drivers, just to save a few seconds of their own time, will rob the remaining years of others’ lives.

I want to quote Shakespeare here, who so rightly said “The injuries that they themselves procure must be their school masters.” (King Lear).

The society as a whole should take measures for public safety. Addiction to speed (and breaking road rules) is like the addiction to smoking. The link between smoking and a host of related illness, stimulated a serious discussion about the nature and the origin of the habit. Gradually and consistently society as a whole has been successful in enforcing NO SMOKING zones in restaurants, theatres, parks and airports.

I humbly wish to submit that errant drivers are a set of seriously sick people who cannot be taken lightly, because, they as a class of people pose a great danger to public safety. Therefore, understanding traffic psychology is important to improve safe traffic mobility.  This can be done by helping to develop accident counter measures through education and motivation of road users.

Many are habitual and impulsive offenders as they fail to plan their journey through a thickly populated city.   We know that some of the traffic offenders are inexperienced, some are stressed, some are inebriated,  fatigued, distracted because of mobile phone etc.  So with these kinds of vehicle users the resulting damages have short-term and long-term impacts. Very sadly many parents are unable to monitor the life style of their own teen age children. Not a single day passes without some young college going boy dying on the road because of over-speed unable to control the monster bike he so much wanted to ride and ride for a long time.

– Prof. K.V.Satyan, V.V . Mohalla, 20.3.2017