Why do people drive on the wrong side of the road in developing countries?
Sweat the small stuff for great outcomes
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Bhopal is a so-called Tier 2 city in India – not a giant metropolis but a sizeable city in central India with resplendent greenery, stunning lakes, iconic palaces, mosques and temples, and proximity to sites of Buddhist worship.
During a visit to Bhopal earlier this month, I found myself bemused and distressed about lost opportunities in the city, so I wrote this blog based on a simple list. As a frequent traveler across the developing world, some of this is surely applicable to many other locales.
First, I can see one of many beautiful lakes from my hotel window. It’s serene – as long as one doesn’t look closely. In the middle is a fountain - or, more accurately, an attempt at a fountain - that bravely spouts an anemic stream of water at regular intervals, but it is covered in unsightly rust. I imagine it was installed in a fit of enthusiasm, likely by some visiting dignitary or local politician, only to be neglected thereafter. It’s an intended object of beauty turned eyesore. In the immediate vicinity of my hotel there were several of these eyesores.
I look at the road below my window. I counted as I wrote this blog. In about 30 minutes, about 3% of vehicles are driving the wrong way on the road. It’s a bidirectional road with a sensible divider in it. Yet, on either side, there are two wheelers and bicycles, and the occasional four-wheeler cavalierly driving the wrong way to take a shortcut of sorts. It’s a wonder there aren’t more accidents. Why aren’t these traffic offenders chastised and penalized?
And of course, we have cows wandering around the roads with abandon, stalling traffic. Other than representing inhumane treatment of animals, if this isn’t a safety hazard, I’m not sure what is.
Complementing the wayward drivers and the meandering cows are ubiquitous packs of stray dogs. They’re emboldened by their numbers, frequently emaciated and probably irritable. Well-meaning charities feed some of these, but I wonder if it exacerbates the problem. To my mind, the better solution would be to round them up, put them up for adoption, and care for them minimally. To those who say that it would be too expensive, well, their ruining the roads isn’t exactly costless. And I haven’t even spoken about the unsightly sanitation hazard of deposits of poop from cattle and dogs everywhere.
Akin to rusty fountains, and especially in this city of history, are rusted signs with as much neglect. Amidst the crush of humanity that is present in every Indian city, it is difficult to find your way to places of interest. If these are marked by signs, they are invariably obscured by neglect. With some local knowledge, I can navigate around this, but I’d imagine someone less familiar would be easily deterred.
None of this is costly to fix. Much of it can even save the city money, if proper accounting is done. The lack of funds is not a remotely persuasive argument.
The ability to fix these is not at all in question. On a previous visit a few months ago, I met several extraordinary entrepreneurs and administrators. In the same city are also ample examples of exquisite attention to detail and beauty. I visited the Museum of Tribal Art which has stunning displays of virtuosity in indigenous art and sculpture. The attention to detail there creates an aesthetic experience equal (to this untrained eye, anyway) to any comparable display I’ve seen elsewhere recently (e.g. in Native American reservations, or indigenous art in Sao Paulo, Brazil, lately, or some years ago across East Africa).
If it isn’t ability or resources, it must be attitudes causing the city’s unsightly mess. To the educator in me, it’s back to educating one other about civic consciousness and responsibility. And back to each of us leading by example. It’s as simple as sweating the small stuff, as it yields big dividends.