rohit

Q: What are a car’s side view mirrors for?

A: To hit stupid pedestrians with.

Q: Why do some cars have side-view mirrors only on one side?

A: So they can hit stupid pedestrians walking in the middle of the road.

Q: Why are cars fitted with rear-view mirrors?

A: So you can see stupid pedestrians you have just hit, writhe in pain.

Q: Why do we have to wear seat belts?

A: To stop getting out and assaulting stupid pedestrians.

Oh, ok. The above Q & a seems a bit extreme as I found out when I talked to a cross-section of drivers. (By the way, I asked when they had cooled off and were no longer cross.)

What they said was this: “You exaggerate.” Then they added, “Only 50 percent of what you say is true.”

Which 50 percent was exaggeration? By common consensus, the bit about seat belts and rear-view mirrors.

We know what rear-view mirrors are for they said, They are there to check if there is still some spinach stuck between your teeth or if you managed to get rid of the bird-shit from your hair.

And about belts they said, “Why should we need a restraint to stop us fro hitting stupid pedestrians, when we have already hit them with the side-view mirrors?”

No, they said, we wear seatbelts because if we don’t, we have to shell out chai-panni for cops. And the rate for both has gone up quit a bit now. Which is why we wait till we get outside city limits.

Off go the seat belts! Freedom as we zoom along highways at 100 plus! no restraints around our feet and no restraints around our middle! Freedom at mid-night and freedom at mid-day!

Motorbike owners feel the same. The other day cops were doing bit to raise the revenue of the state by penalizing bikers without helmets.

“But we do have them,” they all wailed plaintively, pointing to the helmets slung across the back of their bikes.

“Here they are, Brand new. ISI -certified. Virtually unused. How can you fine us?”

We who are in the motor trade, so to speak, know why all these safety rules were introduced. The authorities woke up, as all authorities eventually do – hundred of years after the rest of the world had woken up – to the fact that things were getting out of hand.

You can ignore for a while statistics which show that the accident rate in the country is highest in the world per passenger mile. You can ignore them for even longer than a while. Say a year or two. Or a year or three. Or even a year or 10.

But after a while something needs to be done. And the best thing to do, as all authorities everywhere have found, is to frame new rules.

Since the auto is a western invention, it follows that the rules are from the west and imported wholesale. When they get implanted into our Criminal Procedure Code, they came into conflict with our Natural Genetic Code, especially the bit that tells us that everything’s pre – ordained. If you are fated to have an accident, you will have an accident, however carefully you drive. Whether that accident leaves you unscathed, lamed or dead depends on your density. Not on seat belts or helmets.

(Someone I know survived a bike accident without a helmet: he credit to the fact that he wasn’t wearing a helmet.)

Since the authorities who have imported these laws also possess the same genetic code, it follows that they are enforcing the rules out of a sense of conviction. “Arre baba,” they will say, “Wear your belt when you the police. Or be ready to shell out 50 bucks. Understood?”

Nevertheless, things improve. Coercion becomes a habit. Like, at least in Mumbai city everyone wears belt. That’s better than 30 years ago when I was the only one in the whole Mumbai city wearing one, having got one specially fitted into my Premier Padmini, “Going to the races?” people would look at me and snigger.

Of course not everyone is wearing belts or has mirrors, rear or side. Taxi drivers don’t. Truck drivers don’t. Bus drivers don’t. Presumably, the authorities have exempted them on the excellent principle that this class of professional driver doesn’t need to be looked after. They don’t get hurt. They hurt others. People like us.