Monday 20 July 2015

Traffic Etiquette linked to family structure…

Well you might find the link a bit odd but I have a strong argument to back it up. See, it all started this morning when I pleased as punch that I will be reaching office relatively in time (which means only 10 minutes late) gets road blocked by a gentleman talking on the phone.

So Man is driving slow infact crawling and we are talking 10 o’clock in the morning road blocker who is the worst kind, the bane of all of us simple folks who just want to reach office in time. I honk and curse but Man does not care, he shifts close to the divider and that is the only acknowledgement of my efforts. So okay, I am flexible I hie off to the left and run parrellel to him to vent my spleen and lo and behold Man is concentrated on the phone, talking to biwi…talking to girl friend….talking to…who cares. The point is Man got me thinking.

Is traffic etiquette related to family structure. See those cities which follow the extended family or the joint family as we call it, like Ahmedabad, you would assume has a strong community feeling. But no here is the surprise they are indifferent, I guess living within the community structure makes you develop contempt for it, I mean when you are living it everyday, do you care…Naah.
So you don’t care if your are blocking the road by driving slow, parking in the middle, dropping somebody off at the crossing by just stopping at the crossing…or any of the other convenient things that saves your time at the cost of others. Who cares…they are all family no, we are one big family so what if I delay you, it is all part of the give and take.

But look at the West or Mumbai closer home, here we have Nuclear families, single parent families, they are all in a hurry, no time as they don’t have an extended family member to take up the slack, so they are in a perpetual hurry. What this means is they understand that you are also in a hurry and don’t want to waste time with a road blocker. So they will park where there is parking and walk down to where they actually want to go, drive on the left or park when they are talking on the phone, act like the crossing is there for a reason and not as a drop of zone. All this because they value their time and know that as an individual you also value yours. And they have no rights on you to waste yours and vice versa.

Well, that my argument and I am sure it is worth a working hypothesis, now who will conduct a research to validate it…..over to you.