Why do we have the most ill mannered and badly behaved drivers in the whole bloody world?

 

AI-generated illustration created with ChatGPT based on an article by Vipin Labroo.

Private vehicle ownership has exploded exponentially in India over the last thirty to forty years. While less than 1% of Indian families owned cars in the early 1990s, the percentage has gone up to 8 to 10% in recent times. This may be a miniscule percentage compared to 91.7% for American households that own at least one vehicle, affirming our being firmly in the developing nation category, but the hubris displayed on the roads across Indian cities and towns by these Johnnys come lately is appalling.

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It seems no rules apply to Indian car drivers. The bigger the car is, the fewer the rules that apply. The recent rash of incidents involving drivers of the all-mighty and all-conquering Mahindra Thar SUVs is a case in point. There is utter scorn for speed limits, with cars driven by rank nut cases tearing down the narrow roads and streets of residential areas and societies with gay abandon. People, often regardless of age and sex, drive like they have a grand prix race to win or are participating in the shooting of a car chase in a Hollywood thriller. Woe betide the poor genteel soul driving at a reasonable speed of 40 to 50 kilometres an hour if they come in the way of these speed devils.

The fiends in their mean machines will honk so loudly that you will get a heart attack. Why they might even swerve their car to a stop right ahead of yours after overtaking you, forcing you to stop as well and brace for a face-to-face confrontation with them, which might not end well for you. Discretion is the better part of valour for most average people who drive a car only to get from point A to B and are not trying to prove any point.

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Things seem to get worse with every passing year, as evidenced by the fact that people think nothing of driving against the flow of traffic, if it saves them some time, never mind the jams and chaos that they cause in doing so. This is a phenomenon that is witnessed even on the new expressways that get inaugurated with alarming regularity these days. What is behind the fact that our drivers are so obviously uncultured and even uncouth these days?

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Things weren’t so bad three to four decades back when there were far fewer people who could afford to own and drive cars. There were only the stately Ambassadors, Premier Padminis and Standards on the roads driven gently  by people who were so much better behaved and civilised than most of today’s drivers. There were long delays in the delivery of cars bought by people those days, as these needed to be booked in advance and one had to patiently  wait for one’s turn to come. Maybe their patience developed on account of waiting and waiting for the elusive car keys to land in their hands.

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Apart from government officials who were officially given cars  for their transportation needs, most car owners came from amongst high-ranking private sector employees, business people, officers in the armed forces and professionals like doctors and chartered accountants. These were the creme de la creme of society, not necessarily in terms of wealth, but certainly in terms of social mores, and it showed in the way that they drove their cars.

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As the nation slowly becomes wealthier, the number of people who can afford cars has gone up significantly, but sadly what has been lost is good manners, decency, decorum and the right set of values required when driving on a road shared with people. This is witnessed not just in the way that many people drive, but also in the way that they behave when they travel anywhere as tourists.

Talking loudly, throwing trash anywhere and everywhere like it is nobody’s business, acting entitled and picking up fights at will defines such worthies. No wonder that people are throwing up their hands in horror from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh back home to Vietnam, Thailand and nation after nation around the world.

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People need to understand that something like driving can be a pleasure if carried out in a civilized manner. Follow the rules, don’t be aggressive and spare a thought for others driving on the road. If you are a genuine car buff, then take pride in your knowledge about different kinds of cars on the roads in terms of what brand they are, the kind of power they generate, what kind of fuel they use, their mileage and other features.

Become a member of a Beetle cars group or take part in a classic or vintage car rally. There is a whole global culture built around cars that you can choose to be proud of (check out former late night TV host Jay Leno’s private car collection online, for example and learn about cars). Blasting loud and rustic music with bawdy lyrics meant to disturb and driving like a deranged lunatic at top speed to terrify everybody on the road is not the way to be. Time to grow up.

Getting rid of our obsession with cars

Photo by Cesar Perez: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-sports-coupe-733745/

 It is obvious that the world needs to get rid of its obsession with cars as a personal means of transportation. Yet, we see no signs of that happening in any major way. There is a lot of action happening along the lines of replacing gasoline-powered cars with electric ones as if the latter don’t cause any pollution at all. Shouldn’t one be looking at a future with fewer and fewer cars, rather than obsessing with what is better- gasoline cars or electric ones? Cars are bad for the environment and that is something that has been proven beyond doubt.

What we need to do is to get rid of our obsession with cars-a malaise that is increasingly catching on in the emerging economies of the world like India. I would like to clarify that in my opinion, while we need way fewer cars, I am not suggesting that there be no cars at all as some people really do need them. If you have a daily long commute to accomplish and have no recourse to reliable public transport, sure it would make sense for you to have a car. If you are someone who needs to travel out of town frequently, you could possibly go in your car than pay through your nose for a plane ticket. In any case, an aeroplane is known to be way more polluting than a car.

It is the obsession with cars that I abhor. In the larger cities of India where young working adults often live with their parents in apartment complexes, it is not uncommon for a family to have two or three cars. Often, there are quarrels with the neighbours over parking space, but they will not think of riding in one car and save themselves a world of trouble. Buying more and more and bigger and bigger cars has become a matter of prestige notwithstanding the perennially choked roads and some of the most polluted roads in the world.

As many towns and cities in the West legislate to introduce more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly lanes in place of automobile freeways, countries like India and China which for decades had most people riding bicycles as cars were beyond their reach, they are now are going in the opposite direction. Currently China leads the world in the number of automobiles sold, with the US and India in the second and third place respectively. Considering that less than 9% of people in India own a passenger vehicle, one can expect an ocean of cars to deluge the nation of nearly a billion and a half people in the time to come.

People all over the developed and developing world need to be weaned off their reliance on personal cars as an effective way of getting around and instead, be encouraged to adopt public means of transport like buses and metro rail networks. They should also be encouraged to ride a bicycle instead of going somewhere by car or even walking if it is possible. The infrastructure needs to be put in place for this in the shape of larger, better and more comfortable bus and metro rail networks as well as more pedestrian walkways and bicycle lanes. This has to be done at the expense of cars so that people are disincentivized to use them.

It makes every sense to do so from an environmental and personal health point of view. Fewer cars will go a long way in mitigating the factors that contribute to global warming and by encouraging people to walk, cycle and take public transport, there would be a massive reduction in the incidence of lifestyle diseases on account of the exercise they will get. A clear win-win for all. The glamourisation of cars has to stop and the health of the planet and its people should be something that people should focus all their attention on. The time for obsessions is over. It never leads to anything good.