Drive in Peace !

Following is another article that I have written for my office magazine. It is about driving in India without honking. It is long, so do read at your leisure.

DRIVE IN PEACE!!

Imagine driving on Indian Roads WITHOUT the noise of blaring horns! Wouldn’t it be like in the western countries …. Where traffic moves along smoothly and without the blaring horns?
Much has been said about the driving conditions in India. Some say that to drive in India requires 3 things- a good horn, good brakes and good luck! Anyone who has driven in Bangalore peak hours will agree with me that all of the three are tested to their limits every day as people go about their daily routine trying to get from point A to point B.

We Indians do not really need much of a reason to honk. We honk when –
· We are angry that the cabbie in front is not giving way.
· We are listening to music and want to keep the beat with the horn
· We are driving fast towards a cross road and don’t want to slow down at the junction. (Heaven help someone who can’t hear well!)
· We are frustrated that the traffic ahead hasn’t moved an inch for the last half hour.
· We have a monstrous truck horn on our 2-wheeler and we like to sneak up on cars and honk when we are very close! We love to see the reaction of the car driver. (Seriously, This happens !)
· We have seen someone across the road that we recognize but the other party has not noticed us.
· We need to inform other drivers that we exist.
· A group of pedestrians standing at the side of the road decide all of a sudden that they have to cross the road just before your vehicle is approaching.
· There is a ‘Please sound horn’ painted on the back of the truck in front. I mean, when the guy is requesting you……How can you not?

One day, while driving on my way to work, amidst a cacophony of horns, I started thinking the unthinkable – Is it at all possible to drive one full trip without using the horn? The peak hour traffic was as usual on a weekday morning and so it really was a challenge. Would it work? I took a deep breath and decided to try it out.

As the car in front moved forward creating a gap, a bunch of two-wheelers rushed in to fill the gap just as air rushes in to a vacuum. With steely determination, I stayed calm and did NOT honk. An Auto rickshaw, probably following Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty (of being a wave as well as a particle at the same time), swung out in front of me from nowhere and with a loud engine to boot! And how did “yours truly” react? “Barked an abuse at him and slammed the horn and brakes together keeping the pressure on the horn longer than necessary”, did you say? Sorry to disappoint you. I suppressed years of driving instincts, and chose NOT to react! Meanwhile, a slow moving, fully loaded truck ahead of me, moved to right of the road in a bid to overtake other, slower moving traffic as it started up the flyover. A little way up the flyover, forces of gravity and inertia kicked in big time with the truck. Added to this was the antiquity of its engine and we became a big group of slow moving traffic. Imagine driving a new generation car designed to cruise smoothly at high speeds having to move at snail’s pace just because the driver ahead overestimated the abilities of his truck! “Now what?” I thought. Well, when life gives you lemons, why not make lemonade? So, without endangering surrounding traffic, I became more aware of my surroundings. I started observing the greenery around me, checked out the newer buildings that had come up on the route, listened and absorbed the lyrics of the music from the car stereo and started seeing the others around me as fellow human beings with their own cares of the world. Before I knew it, 25 minutes had passed and I was at the office. And guess what? I had NOT honked along the whole route!!! Hmmm, I thought, so it IS possible, How about I try it on my return trip? The return trip too was an unqualified success. Slowly, I extended my initiative to all my driving trips. And It has worked. Ladies and Gents, I am happy to announce, I have been on “The (honk-less) Path” for over a month now.

Well, obviously, I definitely use the horn if it endangers safety, but the needless, uncontrollable and habitual urge to honk no longer exists within me.

Here are the benefits I have experienced as a result of the “Honk Less, Live longer” initiative, as I call it.
· Reduced stress as I get out of the car at the end of a drive. Feel much calmer nowadays!
· Ability to enjoy the journey as much as reaching the destination. I tend to observe surroundings around me while I drive at a leisurely pace, even though the leisure is not of my choice sometimes!
· I have extended my “need for peace” further to switching off my vehicle whenever I need to stop for longer than a minute at any traffic light. This also helps reduce smoke pollution!
· I tend to smile at errant drivers thereby making them feel a little more relaxed and less prone to ‘errant’ driving behavior. I like to think that I have been able to reduce at least one accident or road rage related incident every day.
· Instead of honking, I stop and motion for a pedestrian halfway across, to go ahead. The look on the pedestrian’s face is pure magic ! (Disbelief followed by a broad smile, usually)

So, my dear friends, I sincerely urge you to give it a shot and learn to drive in peace, even under trying circumstances. Perhaps, you can move towards the goal of silence on the roads like how you kick any other addictive habit like, say Smoking. Start by deciding that you will only honk 5 times a day at the most. The next day, bring it down to 4 a day and so on…. You may think that you alone changing your driving behaviour cannot make a difference. But remember, small drops join together to form the massive power of the ocean. If the story on ‘The hundredth Monkey’ is to be believed, it only needs a critical mass of a group of people doing things a certain way for the entire group to follow suit. I do believe that together we can make a difference and create a calmer driving environment. So, if you succeed (as I am sure you will), do spread the news and inspire others to follow suit.

Did I hear you say – Let me also try it ! :-)