Auto-Rickshaws, Accidents and Assholes – I
I hate being stuck for miles behind multiple three-wheeled taxies- those ugly aluminum-frame boxes sparsely covered with cheap cloth attached to tyres as thick as my toenails- struggling along abreast of each other, struggling so much for speed that their underpowered engines sound like a long, continuous fart from a tightly puckered asshole. I am of course, talking about Auto-Rickshaws.
Buddha said, “Life is full of Dukkha”. Obviously, he hadn’t seen the Auto-Rickshaws and their drivers of Pune City; he might have changed his noble truth to, “Life is not worth that Dukkha”. Seriously folks, why do we put up with it?
They are a nuisance. They are thugs. They are overfilled bladders waiting to burst. They are the bane of our society. And I am talking about auto-rickshaw drivers, not politicians. Why do we suffer them?
What do they do for us? They ferry us in unstable, open vehicles all over the smoky town. That’s not a bad service in theory; however, travelling in open vehicles that are the cause of most of the smoke on the roads is neither good design nor good sense. They are numerous as rats and they pack up the roads. They inhale expensive fuel and excrete poisons. In short, they make sure that everyone trapped in traffic jams breathe the monoxides they generate.
What do they do for us? They do not follow traffic rules. They drive in the other direction on one-ways. They do not stop at red lights. They stop at green lights. They turn abruptly without indicators. They have no conception of fast-lanes. Lane discipline in their language translates as qfgrplbc in ours. Accident is an everyday occurrence for them.
What do they do for us? The vehicles look bad, their forgivably unkempt drivers look worse, and if you happen to be driving behind one of them damned fleas, you can’t see anything in front of it.
I could go on, but I won’t, because I feel like vomiting every time I try to think about it.
Many times I see auto-rickshaws- designed to carry three non-fat passengers- carrying five or six of them, and if its ferrying school children, often more than ten. How a handbag on wheels the size of a chicken can carry ten people in its tiny belly is beyond me. I imagine sitting in one with so many others must feel rather like being inside the belly of a snake that has just had all the passengers as its meal.
Right! So I don’t like the vehicle. Then what about the people who drive them? They fight in one-way streets because a person going the right way got in their way. They beat silly frustrated bikers who happen to shout because auto-rickshaw drivers mess up. They cheat anyone they think are outsiders by demanding fixed fares that are at least double that which the meter would give, and it’s not as if they don’t overcharge to begin with. They are an uncivilized, uncouth humanoid species with a strange, infectious affliction that causes them to spit tobacco on the streets every now and then.
Oh, come on, give them a break, you might say. They’re not that bad. They have to breathe in that same polluted air. They have a lot of stress. More importantly they have to work to feed their ever-growing families. And I would agree. However, they would not have to breathe that polluted air if they didn’t drive the polluting vehicles that gave them a lot of stress if they found other means of employment to feed their families that would not be ever-growing if they found means of recreation other than unprotected sex as a way to relieve the stress caused by the job and the low pay.
Are all rickshaw drivers bad? No. Generally, they are, but there are exceptions to every rule, and I am sure there are good drivers around, even though I haven’t had the chance to meet them. Taken as a whole, however, they appear to be bad, since the few good men are as prominently visible as a new moon in the morning sky.
Am I against auto-rickshaws? Yes. They are as annoying as a swarm of locusts and as useful as mosquitoes.
Am I against using them for transportation? Yes. They are not cost-effective and they pollute and cause traffic jams.
Am I against auto-rickshaw drivers? Yes. They are morally illiterate, instinctual creatures living on gut feeling and emotions. Let me make it clear here that as the human beings they once were, I have no qualms with them, but they are no longer that. Now they are rickshawalas.
Why do we suffer so? Is there no solution? Of course there is. Improve the road infrastructure and public transportation services. Remove these back-jarringly painful vehicles that resemble baby elephants with amputated front legs. The solution sounds simple; however, I fear it will only happen in the last stages of India moving towards being a developed country, which, sadly, I don’t see happening anytime soon due to some other issues I dare not get into.
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Statistics:
Pune City Auto-Rickshaws: 65,000+
Total Number of Vehicles: 2,000,000+
Percentage of Auto-Rickshaws: 2.91%
Pollution levels before Auto-Rickshaw strike: 155 mcg/cm
Pollution levels after Auto-Rickshaw strike: 117 mcg/cm
Percentage pollution reduced: 24.51%
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Next Article:
Auto-Rickshaws, Accidents and Assholes – II
Jaideep Ranade
i totally agree. you would have observed how peaceful was the traffic when rickshaw was on strike. on first day i was shocked to see no traffic issues in university circle. i was thinking whole day and in afternoon read in newspaper that rick wala were on strike. we need to get them off our roads.
and you wont believe I just had a fight with a rick guy because he was coming from wrong side.
hmm. Actually the vehicle is deigned as a small one so that it would be efficient in traffic. Its actually a very good vehicle. Imagine single passenger travelling though big sedan (as you see in developed countries); it is waste of his money & waste of fuel. It is the people using that, are not using that properly. This can’t be the fault of vehicle.
Following are the solutions to problems (of course, in theory):
(1) Pollution : good fuel, good maintenance can prevent this
(2) Traffic : following rules
(3) Number of passengers : following rules
p.s : how come edanar started writing so aggressively ? Its the characteristic of ganagaj