Today we are celebrating No Honking Day in Mumbai and it’s certainly a welcome move for a place where 1.5 million vehicles travel every day carrying 15 millions of population! This news struck all the leading news papers and media channels and I started pondering is it really going to make any difference? Let me share some of the experiences of my friends.
Sumit is just back from UK onsite after 2 years and hitting the roads of Mumbai for the first time and traveling back to Pune from Airport. Its 4 o’clock in the morning and the cab driver is driving at ease. All of a sudden one Innova comes across at around 100kmph changing the lane and in a flash his cab was almost out of the road trying to save their soles banging the horn aloud with no option left!!!
Sachin is back from US and this is his first day on road while going to office on his brand new Unicorn. While going to office on NH-4 a pulsar 200 cuts his road and bang!!! Here he blows his horn to the maximum!!! Does he have any option?
I do respect the decision taken of having “No honking Day” but is it really practical? Now will you fine a person for banging a horn in above cases? Is it justified? I strongly feel we should teach people how to drive and then teach them how and when we should use horn. This is the same case that while being abroad we do not spit on the road, put garbage on the road, etc but the moment we are back home we start doing the same. The attitude makes a difference. We need to change the attitude of people and things will be back on track. The day people start driving properly on road it will virtually eliminate the need for horns. But still to some extent this move of no honking day is certainly appreciable. Now for those who use horns to call there friends in their houses, to take out there frustration while being in traffic, who are so impatient that they cannot wait for the car ahead to move after signal turns green, who unnecessarily blows it to flaunt their custom made horns, etc penalizing them certainly makes perfect sense to me.
Anyway I am just back from outside and realized on the way that I banged the horn twice when people cut my lane. Then on the speed went to 20 and no horn at all…Let the bicycle overtake me I will not bang the horn. At least today!;-).
Sumit is just back from UK onsite after 2 years and hitting the roads of Mumbai for the first time and traveling back to Pune from Airport. Its 4 o’clock in the morning and the cab driver is driving at ease. All of a sudden one Innova comes across at around 100kmph changing the lane and in a flash his cab was almost out of the road trying to save their soles banging the horn aloud with no option left!!!Sachin is back from US and this is his first day on road while going to office on his brand new Unicorn. While going to office on NH-4 a pulsar 200 cuts his road and bang!!! Here he blows his horn to the maximum!!! Does he have any option?
I do respect the decision taken of having “No honking Day” but is it really practical? Now will you fine a person for banging a horn in above cases? Is it justified? I strongly feel we should teach people how to drive and then teach them how and when we should use horn. This is the same case that while being abroad we do not spit on the road, put garbage on the road, etc but the moment we are back home we start doing the same. The attitude makes a difference. We need to change the attitude of people and things will be back on track. The day people start driving properly on road it will virtually eliminate the need for horns. But still to some extent this move of no honking day is certainly appreciable. Now for those who use horns to call there friends in their houses, to take out there frustration while being in traffic, who are so impatient that they cannot wait for the car ahead to move after signal turns green, who unnecessarily blows it to flaunt their custom made horns, etc penalizing them certainly makes perfect sense to me.
Anyway I am just back from outside and realized on the way that I banged the horn twice when people cut my lane. Then on the speed went to 20 and no horn at all…Let the bicycle overtake me I will not bang the horn. At least today!;-).
1 comment:
nice writeup dude.....impressive....
-@mit
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