Please don’t drive fast behind an ambulance!
We see/hear atleast thrice in two days an ambulance siren and also the vehicle trying to flee through the busy roads and traffic. And being in Chennai, where traffic is mounting day by day and having 10lakh vehicles per day would be very difficult for the ambulance to passby.
The ambulance driver will find the best way to pass through the roads in the same time he has many lives in his hand, his own, people on road and also patient in ambulance. Since there is no seperate way or route for the ambulance to pass through we try to hornk and make people to give way for ambulance. What best we can do from our side when we have the ambulance behind is just move in a way where the vehicle can cut through the traffic and move faster. But our chennai people! wow! heights of stupidity! Most of the bikers and cyclist and even cars! sometime run behind the ambulance and aheading to the destination faster!. Running behind the ambulance might be of great risk. What if the driver puts a break when he cannot find a way or he has to make a sudden turn. He can be cautious while driving but not the people who are following the ambulance from behind to reach faster at their destination.
I happend to see similar accident this morining at saidapet corner. You can imagine how busy that road would be and how the traffic would flow in peak hour morning times.
If Chennai is really reading/seeing and listening to this issue/concern. Pl keep in mind that there is a life in do or die situation and we have to pray or make way to make him reach the hospital at the earliest.
We might also join hands to print notice or public message to make this a success.
Fantastic post. I remember Manorama’s verse in a tamil movie something to the sort of "eating the rice out of a corpse’s mouth", which is exactly what this attitude is.
I was just on top of gemini flyover when stupid bastards were doing the same thing this evening. This can’t get more pathetic.
Cut the sentimental bull shit man. Some countries make it a crime to not leave way for emergency vehicles. Even in these countries, it is not like the people are extremely disciplined or "pray for" the people in distress. IT IS THE LAW.
No offense meant to you.
"Cut the sentimental bull shit man" – "No offense meant to you". You accuse me of saying bullshit in the name of sentiment and then you claim you do not mean any sort of offense to me? Who taught you vocabulary / grammar in school? The Janitor?
Nevertheless, if you know what metaphor means, it would perhaps help understand what i was writing. I was referring to a movie dialogue to just express my opinion on how cheap minded the citizens of the state are. While i do agree i was sentimental, cutting the bull shit is not something i believe you can recommend as a course of action because your recommendations are baseless (since my statements were in no way incorrect or irrelevant to the given situation) and you do not provide valid reason as to why on earth you even consider that comment bullshit.
Lastly, "Some countries make it a crime to not leave way for emergency vehicles". This statement indirectly implies (although not explicitly stated) india makes it legal for you not to give way for emergency vehicles. This perhaps is what i could refer to as bullshit in all validity since it gives an impression of something when it actually does not exist in reality.
Just to prove i ain’t bullshitting…
Not giving way to Ambulance or Tailgating a Vehicle, especially like an emergency vehicle like an ambulance accounts to the crime of ‘Rash driving’ under Section. 184, of the Indian Motor Vehicles Act.
Abusing the space of the Ambulance to skip signals and lanes account to the crime of ‘Failure to observe the rule of the road’ under Rule 37(i) under the Section 177 of the Indian Motor Vehicles Act.
You can go Google it and cross check that, if you know what that means.
P.S. Why do i feel that you want an eye for an eye because i called one of your blog post’s irrelevant to chennai metblogs. Nevertheless, yours was a bad comeback.
#1 Please accept my apologies for my opening comment and give others an opportunity to digest my real message in that comment
#2 Truth be told, it took me your effort to recall that you and I had already had talked about another blog. I follow about 47 blogs and honestly, I did not remember/place you before I sent this comment.
#3 You really do have some idea about laws in India. I have to give it to you.
#4 Law isnt a law as long as it is not enforced.
#5 Now if your return comments were mostly in retaliation of what you thought was my personal agenda, you may want to revisit it. In any case, you are just about to destroy the spirit of blogging and blog-commenting.
Lastly, I comment on blogs. I dont comment on bloggers.
I’m not trying to root out apologies, nor am i asking for one to make someone look bad. I just honestly felt, putting someone’s opinion down to emphasize yours is not my idea of a healthy spirit of blogging and blog-commenting.
"Lastly, I comment on blogs. I dont comment on bloggers."
– You just did on your first comment here and there is no denying that my friend.
#4- Law isn’t a law as long as it is not enforced. => You just can’t be more right. I would also add, its again our acceptability to follow such laws that play a role. As long as one does some rubbish because they can get away with it, no law is enforceable. We can bring down BSF to chennai or mount semi automatic rifles to fire lazer guided ammunition at traffic offenders like science fiction movies but that still wont cause the punk from stopping ahead of the stop line during a power outage, when these guns may not work.
Peace.
I don’t apologize because people ask for it. I apologize because I think I should. So your intentions don’t matter.
We as citizens of the country grossly breach (one of) our fundamental civic duties of leaving way for emergency vehicles. Every day people die because they didn’t make it in time to the hospital. No one can deny that.
My first line was an expression of frustration over the fact that we do nothing about it and your blog says something about praying for the distressed. BTW, whether you were giving your thoughts or quoting a movie dialogue – I had no idea nad I dont think it is mentioned as such.
I was adding to it that, even the countries where people follow these rules (of leaving way for emergency vehicles) might not do it unless enforced by law. Might not do it if they didn’t risk losing their license or risk punishment. I am alluding that enforcement of laws is the only way of doing it. We cannot expect 1 billion people to be noble. They will be mean people and there will be noble people. Road rules or otherwise, it’s the law that keeps things together.
Countries that are successful enforcing this dont use semi-automatic guns. We can look at them and do the same.