Graphic Reflections

Breaking traffic rules is an ‘offense‘, a breach of law or an illegal act, how many drivers realise this? Traffic rules have been designed to bring order on roads and to facilitate safe and smooth movement of vehicles, but with largely poor quality education and training for learner drivers, low literacy amongst many drivers, shamefully low fines for traffic rules violations (as low as $3), corruption, poor policing and absence of any mechanism to imprison repeat offenders, the roads of India have become a haven for traffic offenders. The people of India need to be made aware that breaking traffic rules is an offense and those caught need to be treated sternly (like offenders), fined heavily and even jailed at least for a few days if not weeks (for offenses like driving on the wrong side of road). One way to look at India’s alarming road safety situation (the country has the worst rate of road accident mortality in the world, more than 1,00,000 people die on India’s roads every year) is that such a scenario exists because thousands of traffic ‘offenders’ roam around freely on India’s roads with little or no fear of the law.