Every morning chaos reigns on Delhi roads, moms, dads and even teenage siblings of school children contributing in no small measure. Traffic violations by the parents while driving their wards to schools or even bus stops have a cascading effect. The strong message sent out to the highly impressionable kids is that one’s convenience takes precedence over the rule of law.
It is common sight that vehicles turn the wrong way (going against the traffic) from a side road on to the divided main road, with not so much as ‘with your permission’, to drop off children at the precise pick-up point, perhaps 100 steps from the intersection. Or, to reach the cut in the median to get into the correct traffic flow. I wonder what stops them from walking their children after parking the car on the side road, or taking authorized u-turns. At the pick-up point the road space becomes a parking lot for the swanky cars of the parents.
Given this self-perpetuating disregard for the law (propagated through what Richard Dawkins calls ‘MEMES’), it is easy to conclude that no amount of sporadic drives by the traffic police would bring any lasting effect. The irony is this has not registered with the police who say with pride that they are carrying out such drives, to conscientiously put a check mark against the check-list item!
One extremely draconian suggestion might be for the police to ensure that the violators are fined such that it affects their children’s education, say by forcing them to miss a school day or even an exam. The sins of the parents to visit their children, a gender-neutral lesson from our traditions, after all! Then perhaps one can hope for lasting impact.
Any takers among parents?
Raghuram Ekambaram
It is common sight that vehicles turn the wrong way (going against the traffic) from a side road on to the divided main road, with not so much as ‘with your permission’, to drop off children at the precise pick-up point, perhaps 100 steps from the intersection. Or, to reach the cut in the median to get into the correct traffic flow. I wonder what stops them from walking their children after parking the car on the side road, or taking authorized u-turns. At the pick-up point the road space becomes a parking lot for the swanky cars of the parents.
Given this self-perpetuating disregard for the law (propagated through what Richard Dawkins calls ‘MEMES’), it is easy to conclude that no amount of sporadic drives by the traffic police would bring any lasting effect. The irony is this has not registered with the police who say with pride that they are carrying out such drives, to conscientiously put a check mark against the check-list item!
One extremely draconian suggestion might be for the police to ensure that the violators are fined such that it affects their children’s education, say by forcing them to miss a school day or even an exam. The sins of the parents to visit their children, a gender-neutral lesson from our traditions, after all! Then perhaps one can hope for lasting impact.
Any takers among parents?
Raghuram Ekambaram
2 comments:
There's a lot that the Delhi parents need to do. To start with, they can consider using the school bus instead of private vehicles.
There's a lot of mollycoddling that should be done away with...
Children should be taught some basic manners...
To be eligible to teach manners to their children they themselves should have manners,shouldn't they, Matheikal? I understand precisely what you say, and endorse it. It is just that the teaching should start with teaching the proposed teachers!
RE
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