For the last few years there is a boom of new cars and several foreign companies have come to establish their shop here. Few years back people felt craze for foreign cars and used to buy old foreign made cars either through Government agencies or imported them after crossing various hurdles. Now the companies have flooded the market and we are feeling difficult to find a parking space for them. Government has revised the rules for newly constructed buildings to provide parking on the ground floor. On the other hand they have sanctioned four level buildings, and each floor is being owned by a separate owner. Previously there were one owner in the building and now there will be four, each adult having one or two cars in the family. When people don�t find parking place in the lane, they get agitated and fight over the issue.
The roads in the vicinities are narrow and people park their vehicles before their houses and thus squeeze wide roads. Sometimes the other drivers while passing through the lane drive against the rear portion of the parked car and damage it for no fault of the owner. People are not courteous to leave a slip indicating their address and particulars of insurance as is the practice in USA, which is enforced by law. The roads on some of the highways have though been widened making them toll roads, but as per the number of vehicles plying on them the expansion is not enough to fulfill the purpose. People thought the gift of Metro rail will ease the situation, but there is no respite even after increasing the price of petrol several times during the past six months to one year. The traffic moves by inches and in a hurry the drivers cross the other cars making a jam on the road.
Driving on roads inside the colonies, where stray dogs and cows are let loose, most of the accidents take place and the authorities are asleep on this issue. In spite of the orders of the Supreme Court, nothing has been done to restrain the animals, and it amazes foreigners to see that the country is still moving. The drivers have no fear of the traffic police and drive more than the posted speed. They also drive after consuming alcohol and because of laxity in rules; they bribe the cops and get away. Several people have lost their lives, remain agitated for some time and ultimately their anger melts away with the passage of time, and they forget the happening. Driving tests are not so strict and thus even the juveniles manage to get the driving license and gain some perfection on the roads. Many of such drivers might not be realizing the difference between solid lines and the broken lines and drive their vehicle using both the roads.
There are no parking lots for the shopping areas and people park their vehicles haphazardly before the shops or in the lanes, and it is all chaotic with no solution of the problem in sight. Roads in the residential areas cannot be widened and some people are migrating to far flung areas thinking to have a better life. The planning by the Government needs to be improved; they must provide a parking lot with every shopping area to decrease the number of accidents happening every hour. Murders take place due to gaining advantage over the parking place between two car owners and number of cases pending in the courts increase putting people in jeopardy. Terrorists also strike at such places, where there is a conglomeration of people due to thriving business markets, giving disadvantage to police and authorities who remain unable to locate the culprits. Let the intelligentsia, social organizations and the political parties sit together to find a solution for giving relief to the common man, who generally dies for no fault of his.
While stuck in jams we contemplate the city roads wherein so much is inappropriate. It has become common to queue behind vehicles while in traffic snarls and catch a horrible disease due to chemicals emitted by the vehicles and sound pollution too. There are several corrective methods to manage the conflicting hours by using public transport, evading school timings, car pools, shifting offices to rural areas, introducing flexible hours especially in IT jobs and plying less cars on the roads during rush hours. India is a fertile market for sale of cars, but the infrastructure of big cities has become inadequate to fasten the flow of traffic. Drivers must be trained not to clog the side roads that merge into the main roads. Growing and strenuous population of cities must be shifted to other areas, by creating facilities to reduce congestion. It requires intelligent input and only then we can look to its bright side.
Nowhere in the world have stray animals move on the roads except in India, obstructing traffic that leads to accidents. Supreme Court reprimanded the authorities and media awoke them time and again but nothing has been done to redress the difficulties of the common man. Several cases of shoving and hitting ladies and gents by the bulls in the streets and on the roads were reported to the police but nothing was got done either to punish the owners of the animals or to keep them away from the roads. God knows where the funds earmarked to manage the stray cattle are spent when the animals taken to Municipal Corporation shelters are shown on the paper but still move on the roads disturbing traffic and hitting people. Strict laws are required to be passed and implemented to face this traffic snarl, which give bad impression to foreigners who come to visit India. When the news reaches the media of their country they demonstrate a very poor picture of our country and thus this problem needs surveillance and an early solution of the animal menace.
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