Circa two weeks ago (2018 AD), in a land far far away (central Chennai), I was on my way, minding my own business, riding my bike at a reasonable speed. It was a boring old day, and I was just driving to work, just like we used to in the days of the yore. And then, a drifting SUV rammed into my bike from the side. Adrenaline rushed through my blood.
I looked over to see that this SUV was continuing to drift towards me, nearly crushing me against the concrete divider in the middle of the road. I tried honking, shouting and what not. The driver did not even realise that he was drifting nor that he nearly killed me! He was completely oblivious about what had happened. Why? Because he was on his phone the entire time. Texting and calling people. He was multi-tasking! He works in the Chennai police department!
He must be busy. I tried waving at him to get his attention, but he just sped away. He was on his phone for the entire next four signals. And that’s how efficiently he lives! Maybe he was going to catch someone breaking the law… I owe him for the rest of my life. I learnt that life is boring without adventure and without adventure, life isn’t worth living! I had an epiphany! We waste a lot of time on the road just because we try to be ‘careful’.
Road safety awareness articles are almost always a bore. They always try to emotionally manipulate you into thinking that people care about you and that you should drive safely and responsibly and be alive and what not… But isn’t life all about being carefree? And always being on the edge of your seat? Over a lakh have died this year in road accidents. But so what! You haven’t died yet! Why should you change your ways?
How long will you live a sheltered life and try to live out your longest? Instead, try to focus on the most of today. Be exciting, be unpredictable. Sing a song in the middle of the workday, dance in the shower, don’t wear your helmet, stab yourself in the kidney… You know, live your life, have fun! Now time for some truth. No one cares about you. No one cares if you live or die. Yeah sure, you might have a set of friends and family who might miss you once you are gone. But you can’t live your life (or death) pandering to their emotions just cause you ‘care about yourself or others’. That is not the way we should live. Instead, we should live the way mother nature wanted us to live.
We keep deviating farther from nature at every turn. Nature didn’t intend us to move in high-speed metal boxes that are run by millions of years old dead trees. Nature didn’t want us to do a lot of things… Like education, jobs or reason. Nature certainly didn’t make these so-called ‘traffic rules’ and ‘common sense laws’. Yeah sure, we did die at a higher rate a few decades ago when these laws were not enforced to the same degree.
Of course, alcohol is not natural. Of course, social media is not natural. But the law against drinking or using your phone while driving isn’t natural either! So why should we follow that law? Rules are meant to be broken! It is in the constitution. On average, Indians spend as much as four hours per day on the road. We need to be inventive about how we spend this time. You shouldn’t waste this time following orders and being rational. Here’s what you can do instead:
Try These 7 Smart Ideas To Spread The Joy Of Road To Everyone!
1. Overtake all the time Try overtaking every single person you meet all the time. Even if you will save just one second, it is a second worth saved. Sometimes, I take all this extra time I saved and exchange it for gold… 2. Use your horn Sometimes, you might find people on the road who are not stressed out over the slow moving traffic. But you are clearly agitated! You can clearly see that they do not have a path to proceed, but that is okay. Honk the shit out of your retrofitted super loud horn that plays some weird ass tune. Repeat this process till they get as agitated as you.
Note: The longer and louder and more incessant your horns are, the better you are than everyone else on the road. And it helps everyone get home faster!
3. Lane handling Lanes are for white people. You don’t fit into what the government calls a lane. You are a rebel! You can think for yourself. Wherever your vehicle can manage to go, is a lane. Use the footpath. Use the divider. If you can find a way to go under the bus and overtake, do that as well! Follow your heart and ignore your brain. It is the fastest way home!
4. Ambulances The ambulances don’t own the road. You do! Why should they get special treatment? Bully that snowflake! If the ambulances wanted to go first, they should just get their own roads. If you feel sorry about them for whatever reason, just let them go first and tailgate the ambulance all through the traffic. How can you go home soon enough for your TV marathon if you let every single ambulance pass by? 5. Alcohol Alcohol is fun. Drink while driving. Use a sipper to avoid spilling. Ignore the statistics which show the increase in risk while being drunk or sleepless. Those are fake news backed by so-called studies and statistics. Trust this random article that popped up on your feed instead. You may not go home soon. We know over 10000 accidents happen every year from this. But it will be more fun. And that matters.
6. Speed Speedometers exist to show how terrible and inefficient you are. If your engine is not revving at near full capacity all the time, then you are doing it wrong. Think about it this way. If you buy a home theatre system, don’t you always keep the system at 100% volume all the time? Every time you go at any speed lower than the full possible one, you are just wasting your engine. Statistics say that 44.2% of all road deaths are caused by over speeding of some vehicle. But 44.2 is just a number. Follow your heart and drive faster!
7. Multitasking Driving just requires 0.01% of the brain focus. I read it in some comment section on Youtube. You can use the rest for important activities. Try to get a lot done when you are on the road. Order food delivery. Make some phone calls. Plan your startup. Write that novel you have been talking about. Link your Aadhaar to your Bluetooth speakers. Studies say that distracted driving is on its way to becoming the highest cause for road accidents in India. But why should that bother us? We can surely handle text and drive at the same time. We are not like all those other people. If freedom fighters followed the rules, we wouldn’t be a separate nation today. Did they let getting arrested get in their way? Why should you? Let’s honour them by defying traffic laws and common sense. Forge your own path as our ancestors did. That is the best way to honour their sacrifices. #Jai Hind.