Driving a Cultural change in India: Project Background Download Print Version
India is undergoing a rapid change. Small sleepy cities like Pune and Banglore are experiencing population rises at an exponential speed. With economic growth and growing middle income group, all cities are victims of quantum rises in number of vehicles. Pune for example adds 10,000 – 13,000 new vehicles per month (a rate of over 400 per day). With the advent of the Nano, things are set to get worse.
Unfortunately in sixty years since independence the authorities in India have failed to publish a National Highway code. Moreover an ability to use the clutch-accelerator is sufficient to get a driving license. Consequently the traffic everywhere is chaotic and undisciplined. Each year up to 400 people die on Pune roads, almost three times suffer from accidents. Between 6-10 % of global road traffic accidents occur in India.
India has copied the West - replaced the dhoti with denim, high-rise buildings for Indian cottages, burger and coke instead of Indian breads. Surely we can copy the Western driving habits too and make our roads safer.
While there is ample exposure to Western lifestyles through TV and Bollywood films, there is virtually no exposure to Western driving habits and road etiquettes. Without an alternative model to follow, Indian road users would continue with their previously acquired road habits.
With this in mind I produced a series of videos demonstrating the road culture in UK. Filming in London was advantageous as the road rules are similar to those in India. Vehicles ply on left of the road and contradictory to our beliefs, UK roads are not any wider than those in India.
The videos cover several concepts: blind spots, the principle of mirrors-signal-manoeuvre, stopping behind stop lines at red lights, giving way when merging or leaving main roads, respecting and showing courtesy to pedestrians at zebra crossings, the tyre and tarmac rule, speed limits, stopping distances, the 2 second rule, dealing with roundabouts, parking and lane discipline along with overtaking.
Though a Promotion DVD is available for potential sponsors to consider free distribution of the DVD to the public, all 17 videos are available at http://driving-india.blogspot.com
It is a misconception that traffic chaos is due to narrow roads, multiplicity of different vehicles on our roads, lack of education and poor signage. The videos demonstrate that Traffic problems have its roots elsewhere. We must be asking ourselves why we have lost our civilised ways of living, the mutual respect for each other and value attached to non-hedonistic ways of life. Why have we lost our ability to be rational - almost habitually drivers start honking as signals switch from Red to Green or how much time would be saved by stopping at signals well beyond the stop lines (on signal controlled zebras)?
Hope is that the videos will create awareness amongst road users and pave way to a better and safer road culture for all.
Finally, a note on how the videos were made: it will be fair to say that the driver education videos is a home production. No corporate funding was involved. The videos were first conceptualised, hot spots for getting suitable action identified and then filming proceeded. With over five hours of footage available, there was need to edit and with some effort, I managed to learn a few tricks while using Ulead Videos Studio. What was more challenging for a person with medical background was making animation. After much searching and trying several animation software's (which were increasingly beyond me) I came across a wonderful article written by an Indian teenager on the web, where he described a process if ''frame by frame'' animation. Painstaking as it is, this is what worked for me and with some help from the Ulead GIF animator I was on my way. The DVD with all the videos is also a semi-professional job and comes with an interactive menu page. Hard work as it has been, I have enjoyed it and the kind feedback I keep getting has made it all worthwhile.
Dr Adhiraj Joglekar
India is undergoing a rapid change. Small sleepy cities like Pune and Banglore are experiencing population rises at an exponential speed. With economic growth and growing middle income group, all cities are victims of quantum rises in number of vehicles. Pune for example adds 10,000 – 13,000 new vehicles per month (a rate of over 400 per day). With the advent of the Nano, things are set to get worse.
Unfortunately in sixty years since independence the authorities in India have failed to publish a National Highway code. Moreover an ability to use the clutch-accelerator is sufficient to get a driving license. Consequently the traffic everywhere is chaotic and undisciplined. Each year up to 400 people die on Pune roads, almost three times suffer from accidents. Between 6-10 % of global road traffic accidents occur in India.
India has copied the West - replaced the dhoti with denim, high-rise buildings for Indian cottages, burger and coke instead of Indian breads. Surely we can copy the Western driving habits too and make our roads safer.
While there is ample exposure to Western lifestyles through TV and Bollywood films, there is virtually no exposure to Western driving habits and road etiquettes. Without an alternative model to follow, Indian road users would continue with their previously acquired road habits.
With this in mind I produced a series of videos demonstrating the road culture in UK. Filming in London was advantageous as the road rules are similar to those in India. Vehicles ply on left of the road and contradictory to our beliefs, UK roads are not any wider than those in India.
The videos cover several concepts: blind spots, the principle of mirrors-signal-manoeuvre, stopping behind stop lines at red lights, giving way when merging or leaving main roads, respecting and showing courtesy to pedestrians at zebra crossings, the tyre and tarmac rule, speed limits, stopping distances, the 2 second rule, dealing with roundabouts, parking and lane discipline along with overtaking.
Though a Promotion DVD is available for potential sponsors to consider free distribution of the DVD to the public, all 17 videos are available at http://driving-india.blogspot.com
It is a misconception that traffic chaos is due to narrow roads, multiplicity of different vehicles on our roads, lack of education and poor signage. The videos demonstrate that Traffic problems have its roots elsewhere. We must be asking ourselves why we have lost our civilised ways of living, the mutual respect for each other and value attached to non-hedonistic ways of life. Why have we lost our ability to be rational - almost habitually drivers start honking as signals switch from Red to Green or how much time would be saved by stopping at signals well beyond the stop lines (on signal controlled zebras)?
Hope is that the videos will create awareness amongst road users and pave way to a better and safer road culture for all.
Finally, a note on how the videos were made: it will be fair to say that the driver education videos is a home production. No corporate funding was involved. The videos were first conceptualised, hot spots for getting suitable action identified and then filming proceeded. With over five hours of footage available, there was need to edit and with some effort, I managed to learn a few tricks while using Ulead Videos Studio. What was more challenging for a person with medical background was making animation. After much searching and trying several animation software's (which were increasingly beyond me) I came across a wonderful article written by an Indian teenager on the web, where he described a process if ''frame by frame'' animation. Painstaking as it is, this is what worked for me and with some help from the Ulead GIF animator I was on my way. The DVD with all the videos is also a semi-professional job and comes with an interactive menu page. Hard work as it has been, I have enjoyed it and the kind feedback I keep getting has made it all worthwhile.
Dr Adhiraj Joglekar