Hi,
I am in Dubai now for an onsite assignment from my company (Wipro). The country, entire UAE for that matter, is so disciplined that the traffic never is chaos here. I feel, we back in India should have this as learning. I asked many drivers who drive the Taxis here just one question. ’’Why the traffic in UAE is so disciplined?’’. The answer that I got was almost same. If any one, who got stuck in a traffic offence, will have only 2 fair chances each anyway bang the offender. First one will make a hole in the pocket of the driver, second one will cancel the driving license itself. The third offense will open the door to leave the country immediately.
I know that this will be impracticable in India with immediate effect. What I suggest the central and respective state governments is, to introduce the traffic culture lessons in schools right from the 8th standard. By the time the student reaches 10th class, he/she should target to get a driving license for the two-wheeler. The examination for this would be after the actual exams are over. So, if a person gets a 2-wheeler license in that manner, he should summarily be educated up to 10th standard. If we can continue the traffic understanding lessons in the intermediate and graduation, one have to get a 4 wheeler driving license by the end of his/her graduation.
This education should cover, vehicle maintenance, keeping the environment clean when you own a vehicle etc.
This will give 2 advantages. One, being the learning on traffic and its effects on our population, we can make traffic-aware citizens for future. Secondly, we can check the school dropouts to the maximum extent. With the kind of development that we have in computers in India, I do not think the fraudulent do have more days to celebrate.
At the worst case, this will at least make people think that, traffic is a science and can be learnt and not be measured with number of licenses.
Now that country is gearing up for good road infrastructure within 4 years from now, by adding Golden quadrilateral project and other similar projects, I feel this is not too late to think on producing good drivers.
This will help India, become a traffic-cultured country in the coming years. Hope my fellow MS users understand and take this discussion further.