".... Yes, n' how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died? ...."
In the above song, Bob Dylan was protesting against deaths in what he perceived as an unnecessary war. The sentiment expressed in the above song came to mind when we heard the sad, sudden and tragic death of Prof. VSR Murthy, a young faculty in the Materials and Metallurgical Engineering Department at our IIT. The unpredictable and lack of safety of the traffic on many roads and highways gives the feel of being in the midst of a war -- an avoidable and unnecessary 'war'.
Spurred by this tragic accident, a google search on statistics of traffic accidents in India reveal numbers that are quite mind boggling. There are about 8 traffic deaths daily on an average in Delhi alone! India has 1% of world's road traffic, and 6% of the traffic accidents. And so on... And, of course, numbers and statistics don't even include the personal and emotional aspects involved with the loss of lives. When will our nation wake up and help its citizens to follow modern traffic etiquette and become a part of modern world in this respect. Besides minimizing daily frustrations associated with travel, it will certainly save many lives - lives that are being prematurely extinguished.
There is of course no magical way to deal with such problems and solve them instantaneously. If we desire for a change, it has to start somewhere. The IIT Kanpur Traffic Etiquette Group was formed in July 2004 by a group of motivated faculty and students to discuss ways to improve traffic etiquette within the campus and facilitate its implementation. Our goal is to "Think Globally, Act Locally" -- make IITK into a model town and hopefully set a trend for the rest of the country.
The campus community has in the past debated issues related to traffic rules extensively. Some action has also come out of these and resulted in improving the traffic situation in the campus. One example is to encourage people to keep to the left while making turns at the round-about on the campus main road. This proves that if initiatives are taken to change public behavior that is perceived as reasonable, it is likely to succeed. We are hopeful that with enough initiative, we can change the public behavior and put in place a campus that is safe and in every way at par with international standards.
We encourage people to please have a look at the traffic rules, follow them carefully and also encourage others to respect them. If any of you would like to join our efforts or share material on the subject, we would love to hear from you.