CONGESTION BLUES CAN BE AVOIDED

According to a Reuters report, Jaak Gabriels, Belgian Minister for small and medium-sized businesses, in July this year proposed a unique system of traffic vouchers to reduce rush hour traffic jams.

Under this scheme each citizen would be awarded traffic vouchers for a certain quantity of travel. Drivers would be allowed to trade unused travel via an electronic bourse.

Newspaper Het Belang Van Limburg reported that Gabriels said he wanted to attack the problem by offering financial incentives to the motorists to avoid unnecessary travel.

Gabriels cited several studies indicating that traffic jams cost companies money. A 1996 study in Flanders, Belgium showed a cost of 51 Belgian francs ($1.20) for every kilometre that a driver sits in traffic held up in a traffic jam, while a Dutch study estimated an annual cost for small- and medium-sized businesses of 500,000 francs, the newspaper said.

We in India could take a cue and start thinking on these lines to avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the associated stress and tension that go with it. The recent spurt in the incidents of road- rage on Indian roads makes it even more relevant.

The volume of traffic on the Indian roads has grown over 100 times in the last fifty years but the road space has however grown only by five to six times in the same period.

While in 1950 we had only 0.3 million vehicles, today the country has more than 25 million vehicles. The growth of our roads has not kept pace with the growth in the number of vehicles.

With ever-increasing number of vehicles on ever-shrinking road space, the stress confronting us in every day life takes its toll on our drivers too.

As soon as you step on to the wheel, the driving demon takes over. The crowded roads, mad traffic, honking drivers, harrowing traffic lights that literally make you see red and above all our desire to remain in the fast track bring out the worst in us.

The tension that may have its origin at our work place or at our homes tends to spill over in our driving. The locked up frustration and offence finds a vent in our driving actions.

As you get late for work, tension starts building up. You just want to get out of the whole mess by hook or crook. You sweat, curse, fume, ridicule and after much wriggling, jerking, honking and juggling of gears you get out of the mess no doubt but with frayed nerves for the day ahead.

Mind you, we in India are not alone in having this malady. Even in the United States of America since 1987, the number of miles driven has increased 35 percent, while the road length has increased by only 1 percent. With traffic congestion on the rise, life for many commuters is wrought with frustration. Everywhere, people show signs of disgust and apathy as they attempt to navigate crowded roads often filled with hostile, hurried drivers.

Traffic congestion leads to aggressive driving. Heavy and slow-moving traffic makes many drivers anxious, leading to such dangerous acts as tailgating and weaving in and out of traffic. There is little room for error on crowded and congested roads. The more you tend to 'idle away' your time in a traffic jam, the more likely you are to take personally the innocent mistakes of other drivers.

Once freed of congestion, drivers often find themselves pressed for time. This tempts them to speed and run red lights, thus perpetuating the cycle of aggression. The drivers have to find out effective means to cope with this problem without reacting to aggressive violence.