The dissipating joy of driving

• Follow

I have been driving for the past 27 years and have mostly enjoyed the experience. Maybe because I used to commute during non-peak hours. But for the past four months or so, driving has now become a bitter experience. The reason? I now have to leave one state, enter another and re-enter the first state for my place of work.

During this period, Delhi and its neighbouring areas have been hit by the farmers’ protest which has led to road blockades near the borders. People going to offices in the morning or while returning in the evening faced traffic congestion and snarls.

As the protests grew bigger in size and impact, the condition on the road became even more chaotic.

A simple question here. Why can’t we follow the system of lane driving? Being stuck on the roads for sometimes hours, you can make out that if everybody follows lane driving, things wouldn’t be so bad. Zig-zag driving and cutting across lanes when there is no space to move ahead adds to the confusion and rise in blood pressure.

While all this is going on another surprise awaits you. Some people who don’t have the patience to take a U turn from the next signal decide to travel against the traffic. Which means not only do you have to mind the vehicle in front of you but also the one coming at you. The resultant jams run into hours and kilometres.

At times when you see and feel that the condition is slightly better, the people whose job it is to maintain order on roads — police — get into the act.

Out of nowhere and seemingly for no reason, barricades are placed on the roads by police. You can see a couple of policemen at the barricade casually inspecting the vehicles with no real intent. So as you exit one state, you encounter a barricade and when you re-enter the state, you run into another barricade.

And after all this, if you think you will the reach your destination soon, you could be in for another check. This time for the high security number plate. You can see policemen at various spots trying to identify vehicles without these number plates. And the result, you guessed it right, another jam.

So, in sum, driving is no more fun. But just hoping that things will improve with better compliance and effort from all stakeholders.