Improving traffic in India. An attempt by a psychiatrist.

This blog had the privilege of being noticed by Dr. Adhiraj Joglekar who has put in a great deal of effort to create material that can be used by interested people (like all the great folks who participate in the Ahmedabad Traffic Consultative Committee) to further the cause of better traffic in our environment.

See his blog at http://driving-india.blogspot.com/ where he has created a series of videos we could also use (with his permission, of course).

List of videos on his site:

1 Covers the concept of Blind spots

2 Introduces the principle of Mirrors, Signal and Manoeuvre

3 At red lights, stop behind the stop line

4 At red lights there are no free left turns

5 The Zebra belongs to pedestrians

6 Tyres and Tarmac (rather than bumper to bumper)

7 Merging with the Main road

8 Leaving The Main Road

9 Never Cut Corners

10 Show Courtesy (Gandhigiri) on roads

11 Five Rules that help deal with Roundabouts

12 Speed limits, stopping distances, tailgating & 2 seconds rule

13 Lane discipline and overtaking

14 Low beam or high beam?

15 Parallel (reverse) parking made easy

16 Give the cyclist the respect of a car

17 Dealing with in-car condensation

It seems he’s a psychiatrist. From that point of view he’s written an article on his website. Here is the link http://driving-india.blogspot.com/2008/01/traffic-chaos-on-indian-roads.html please read it and comment, either right here or on his website.

Distributing pamphlets at Mansi

Gauri sent in this report about the activity last Saturday:

Dear All,

Last Saturday at Mansi cross roads was great fun in spite of the heat and dust. The police was out in full force and many members came in to support. Tony Parmar's children were also there and enjoyed the leaflet spreading activity.

Most amusing was this couple who argued for more than an hour and called the press to their support, only to be told to pay up their fine. The gentleman in question had not worn a helmet due to a head ache for which he had a doctors certificate. It also shows the medical profession lack of concern by issuing a certificate for such issues, instead of advising the patient to opt for public transport thus not jeopardising their own patient or other road users lives. After all of us ATCC members took turns to explain to them and the 3 police who were kept busy by them for the length of time, Janakbhai politely asked him how his head was after so much time in the sun?

The ATCC is now in regular touch with DNA who are at present writing on BRTS issues. The AMC has also informed the journalist that they will be co-ordinating their efforts on awareness campaigns on the BRTS with and through ATCC. Has anyone been contacted so far?

Today evening at 5 pm the Fire Safety Day will be celebrated by our very own fire dept, which I must point out to you is one of the best in the region. You are invited to attended and get to know your firemen better.

Next Saturday, how about Iscon circle?

Come join us in making Ahmedabad's traffic better

Ahmedabad is going through a wildly optimistic phase at the moment. Business appears to be booming, real estate prices have shot to never-before levels, and people are feeling good about themselves.

There is talk of giving Mumbai a run for its money and turning Ahmedabad into a finance hub. We do have better infrastructure and certainly more room to grow and build a really modern world class city.

But we don’t have the governance to allow this to happen.

Ahmedabad has very bad traffic conditions. There is utter chaos and anarchy on the roads. It’s almost as if no one is in charge.

There are traffic cops, of course, but completely ineffective. Clearly, the government considers this a low priority task and have not seen fit to give this the attention it needs.

Out of desperation a group of citizens have come together to form the Ahmedabad Traffic Committee. Spearheaded by Gauri Wagenaar, who puts in a lot of time and effort, this is a loosely knit group of sincere and concerned citizens.

This website invites you to come be part of this effort, whoever you are. Even the smallest contribution is welcome.

Would you, for example, take out a few moments to distribute leaflets? Even that would be much appreciated.

Leave a comment below with your contact details and ideas. All suggestions and participation is more than welcome.