Roads and people

People in Chennai, well, most of them, think that the public roads, right from the ECR or Mount Road to the smallest kurukku sandhu are their family property. Hence, these honourable citizens take them for granted, not unlike the way they would treat their living room or porch. They do everything except maybe sleeping in the middle of the road. As a regular rider on Chennai roads, i have come to experience a whole lot of such people; and instead of just using the choicest of expletives at that time, i decided to blog on it. Just yesterday, there was this old man along with his wife on a Max 100R, stalling himself in the middle of the road, undecided on whether he was going straight or right; well, for about ten seconds. I was around 100 metres away, was not going very fast, believe me, and he just stayed there without making a move. There was a pit as wide as a really huge manhole, and deep enough to swallow half my front tire on the remaining bit of the road, which meant i couldn't go that way either. Someone who didn't notice the old man or the pit would've surely crashed. This brings into prominence not only the lack of road sense of the users, but the conditions some roads are in.

There's this main arterial road where they recently removed the median for reasons perhaps not known to them also; they have not properly levelled the area of the road where the median stood once, the result being a slight elevation, and a whole lot of small stones and sand there. This could catch a motorist unawares, leading to a skid, and a major accident if it's his unlucky day.

Coming to the people. I have encountered umpteen people speaking on cellphones while crossing the road, especially women(of all ages). They do not realise that it is extremely hazardous not only for their own self, but also to every motorist passing by. The motorist may cause injury to himself while trying to avoid these poeple. Forget those on cellphones. What about those jaywalkers who cross the road after the signal turns green, those men enriched by TASMAC, people holding out a stop signal for the purpose of their crossing the road or those who absolutely do not have the slightest judgment of the speed an approaching vehicle is coming at.

There can be no hope of any of the above changing even the slightest bit, they are part of our very own lovable Singara Chennai.