I spend a good part of my day travelling to and from work. For work I pass through an industrial belt of the city.Balanagar, Patancheru, if your familiar with Hyderabad. So my early mornings are filled with smog and sniffing chemcials and inhaling dust. This part of the city is ugly. Hyderabad is becoming increasingly ugly. How do we save Indian cities from turning into lanes choking with fumes and dust from speeding autorickshaws, overloaded buses and vehicles?

Autos will just whiz past without indicators, cars will drive fast, buses are the KINGS of the road. Pedestrians own the streets. Two wheelers beleive that they can squeeze past two lorries. There are no pavements on most roads. Your hardly find police men at traffic signals. So a traffic jam is definitely on your daily toast. You'd find pavements only in the swanky parts of the city.


What is the road culture of Indian cities? There is hardly a road culture, in most Indian cities. Delhi is doing better because they have so many flyovers and the new metro to boost of. I have travelled in the Metro and it is good!! We need that kind of a commuting here in Hyderabad. Unfortuantely the MMTS MultiModal Transport System (The local mass transit using train lines) isn't doing well. After all it connects only the fringes of the city.

It surprises me after living all my life in Hyderabad that two offending drivers will stop their vehicles in the middle of the street and start to abuse each other, whist a traffic jam is brewing right there. No hand indications!!

We need to get back a road culture if not it's going to choke us down. Get out the urban and family planners to restore decent road culture.

What is the road culture of your city?