If you were to go by the recent diktats of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board then all motorist should go easy on honking while driving on Bangalore roads. This is to ease the levels of noise pollution in the city. Noble thought except if the state pollution board would take into cognizance that honking saves lives on Indian roads.
India has the highest number of deaths due to road accidents every year, in the world. The latest world-wide statistics released by International Road Federation (IRF) reveal that 1,19,860 people are killed in road accidents every year in India. Besides, India suffers a staggering hit of Rs.1 lakh crore ($20 billion) every year due to road accidents. The chaos that you see on Indian roads is unimaginable, even in cities like Bangalore. There are no lanes and if there are lanes there is no lane discipline. Lane cutting, overtaking is often aggressive and threatening. All sorts of vehicles would be zipping past you from all possible directions and the only resort that you have to deter or discourage an aggressive defaulter is blowing your horn. Added to this there are ones who take a lazy stroll on busy roads, blissfully unaware of the approaching vehicles and confidently sure that the drivers and their brakes are efficient enough to save them. Such idiots can only be warned and awakened by honking. Agreed that there are drivers who honk unnecessarily too but then you shall always have some people with poor road behaviour. They can best be ignored. However, some noise pollution is better than hundreds and thousands dying on roads.
The sources of noise pollution are not only the motor horns, industrial noise, construction noise, social nuisance like blaring loudspeakers are no less offenders. When I used to live in North, I remember that especially during winter season, loud speakers would blare relentless throughout the nights at full volume because of the Jagrans, kirtans, political events or marriages. The devotion and celebrations were done with complete public apathy and without any remorse of causing inconvenience to other people in the locality, especially to kids, elders and sick. There was no way to protest and if one did then he/she was sure to face a barrage of crowd hooliganism and public outrage. Can pollution boards stop such hegemonic public nuisance?
The attempt is not to justify honking or the noise created by the same but just to convey that the root cause (poor traffic management) should be not be ignored and nor the usefulness of honking in such scenarios should be overlooked. Next you may know is that you are fined for honking and you think twice before blowing a horn. As a result you are left unarmed and naked in front of the burgeoning monster traffic!
Issues can’t be raised in silos. And if done so, they cause little engagement with the stakeholders.
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