Road madness

From a Western point of view traffic in India has always been extreme. In the good old days, when privately owned cars were less numerous, the pulsating stream of vehicles consisted primarily of two-wheelers (the Indian name for motorbikes), the big antique-looking-even-when-brand-new Ambassador cars and auto rickshaws with of course the occasional camel, cow, bullock cart and perhaps even an elephant thrown in for variety.

I haven't seen any of these slower moving creatures on this trip but the increase in personal cars and the shocking condition of MG Road have combined to turn it into a horrendously busy, pedestrian-unfriendly and unattractive stretch of road. First, for those of you that have never been to India I'll explain "MG Road". In almost every Indian city/town there will be a street named after the country's father - Mahatma Gandhi.

In the case of Trivandrum, MG Road stretches for about 4 km, roughly north to south, from East Fort to where the road ends at LMS Vellayambalam Road (although this

Google map indicates that the last 1/2 km or so of MG Road is actually called Salem Kanyakumari Road). I can't remember what MG Road was like in the 1990s when I was first here but it certainly has been under construction for the past five years since I returned to India in 2006 (after an 11 year absence). The view below, which looks south towards 'Overbridge' (where the road crosses the railway line) gives a rather inaccurate idea of what it is really like since it was taken on a Sunday when traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, is light and there are few cars parked on the edge of the road. I believe that the median running down the middle is new and it seems that work is ongoing to put a curb on both sides of the road (you can see it to the left of the pile of dirt on the left hand side of the photo). But so far there is precious little in the way of sidewalks though perhaps that is what will happen once curb installation is finished - but there seem to be a lot of obstructions to be removed before a sidewalk can be installed.

Walking along the edge of the road on a normal (i.e. not Sunday) day is not pleasant. The first picture below shows you some of the typical obstacles - unexpected ditches, piles of rubble and sometimes where there is sidewalk it is impassable or downright dangerous as the two following pictures show. The pile of gravel is on the pavement outside the Secretariat (state government building) and the sidewalk with the gaping holes is just before overbridge - imagine walking on the latter on a dark night, it's not hard to see how people can get hurt.

Last week this pile of gravel was at least twice as high

Imagine this at night!

The following pictures give a more accurate idea of the traffic on MG Road on a typical day and how there is no semblance of order - pedestrians cross as they wish waving their hand nonchalantly at vehicles (as if this simple gesture has some magical power able to stop a speeding car or bus - and judging by the reports almost daily in the newspaper of people being killed or seriously injured in vehicle-person collisions this is a significantly fallacious and dangerous belief), there are no lanes, cars park higgledy-piggledy on the road's edge forcing pedestrians either into the traffic or scrambling over the aforementioned obstructions and of course all this chaos is accompanied by the almost continual honking of horns and usually casual attention paid to traffic lights (by both those on foot and those driving).

Cars parked on verge force pedestrians into the path of traffic

People cross as they please sometimes with hardly even looking for traffic

As you can see there is no semblance of lanes or order in the traffic flow

I also assume from watching people completely disregard the "don't walk" signal that they do not understand or it has not been explained to them that the red man means 'don't cross now as it isn't safe'. I watched a man yesterday holding his hand out in a 'see me and let me safely cross' signal as a stream of traffic made a right turn from LMS Vellayambalam Road onto MG Road. The don't walk signal was displayed but still he stood there in the middle of the road, as traffic passed within inches of his feet, while I waited on the sidewalk. Within less than a minute the walk signal turned to the green man, the traffic flow stopped and I crossed safely.  I can only surmise that he didn't understand what the symbols meant (of course the less palatable and more likely explanation is that he understood perfectly but - like the majority of the people I see - doesn't seem to feel that these suggested rules of traffic behaviour apply to him).

The final thing I'd like to mention is the flaunting of the helmet law. As you can see in the final photo only about half of the motorcycle drivers are wearing helmets and NONE of the pillion riders. This is despite this being the law all over India. Apparently a prominent individual in Kerala is suing the government because although the helmet law is on the books the police actually tell people not to bother with it and this person's son was killed in a motorcycle accident that he would have survived if he had been wearing a helmet. Every day I see innumerable people with their helmet looped over the mirror, balanced on the bike between their legs or over their arm - I presume they will be able to tell a policeman that they have a helmet and thus avoid a fine (which is quite expensive I believe - around 100 Rs or about 2-3 hours pay for an average person).