Kerala is a really crowded place. Like so crowded that you can travel between two towns like a 150kms apart and still not figure out where one town ended and the other began. The entire length of the roadside will be full of houses. Land as you can see is a precious commodity. Kerala also has one of the highest per capita vehicle ownership in the country. And all these people need place to drive their new cars.
One day someone in power will be traveling down the road, and say "Hey, this road needs to be widened". Some paperwork will follow, some contracts given and the road will be widened until there is no space between it and the walls of the houses on either side. (Well, it might not be actually done like this, there might be planning committees and district-wise budget allocations, but it often looks like it might as well have been)
People now walk out of their houses right onto the road. Not even 1 meter will separate the houses from the roads. Now when someone gets out of their house and walks to the bus stand, he or she will have to walk on the road, cause there's just no other place to walk. (Ok, sometimes, there will be a few inches of thick undergrowth, which they could walk on). Anyway, Mr. A walks from his house to the bus stand and to the corner shop and anywhere else on the main road. Where else is he supposed to, anyway? The cars have to plan accordingly, and not stick to the curves near a turn cause there could be people walking.
One day, Mr. A, comes into town, or rather a larger town, like one of the towns at the end of the 150 kms from the other one. He gets down from the bus, and he sees a shop across the road and walks across the road for it. He sees some people further down the road, waiting on the side, with white stripes drawn across the road. A policeman stands next to the line with a whistle. He wonders what's so sacred about the line that they are waiting there, rather than just crossing.
When someone is used to walking on the road his whole life, simply because that is the only place to, you can't expect him to not cross it. Hey, if I can walk on this sides of this, and since there is no demarcation of the sides from the center, I may as well walk over it right? Mr. A feels he has the right to cross the road at any point, it’s his right, he owns the road as much as the cars do. He doesn’t care about blocking cars up ahead, traffic blocks, fuel wastage. You got as much chance that Mr. A will know to stick only to the sides and not cross at random, as giving a dog a bone and telling him to chew only the left side. What’s the difference, he asks.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that stupid country folk come to the towns and cause the chaos. Even in towns, there are hardly any sidewalks, and even where there is, they will be too narrow to accomodate more than 2 people walking. Further, electricity poles, telephone switches, on the sidewalk will just force the person to walk on the road anyway. And when you can walk on it whenever you want, you can cross it whenever. Mr. A, was just lucky to come in just before school started to see those people waiting at the zebra cross. Who bothers about those normally?
The first step to safer and smoother traffic, is organizing the pedestrians. Atleast here its a lot better than the cows in Tamil Nadu. But city traffic jams and the slow movement of traffic here is caused only by the pedestrians. And you can't blame them. They have no other choice and they will not logically understand whats so special about some white lines and why they have to stop there.
Give people clear directions, in a simple logical way, that will make sense to them, and they don't mind following the law. Make the law illogical, and you might as well not make it.
Vote for me, and I'll make your laws logical.
