When Public Transports Went After Public.

You are waiting at a red light. Your car is the right-most one and there is no divider. There is a turn on your right, from where vehicles take a turn. And everytime a DTC bus is there, you remember all the 33 million gods because you know that today's public transport drivers are too reckless. And then that bus luckily doesn't bump into yours, but does into the car behind you. And then the driver of that bus is planning to abscond from the spot. Well! Pick any colony for that matter, and you will get to know that this happens once in a week or so.

The best part about this is that DTC knows about this. They might be getting regular complaint related mails from general public. All they reply is "Sorry for the inconvenience caused. We will look into it. Thank you for being a concerned user of DTC." But deep down, we know that inconvenience is neither regretted, nor the error will be rectified. Drivers will continue to be reckless, DTC buses will continue to go after the public itself, and mails will be just read.

Recently, a 19 year old boy died in an accident caused by a DTC bus. The boy was on his bike and the bus driver wanted to overtake. When the bus hit the bike, it dragged the latter for around 300 meters, after which it stopped. The youngster had lost substantial amount of blood and was unconscious. He was lying that way for about half-an-hour, while people around him were taking pictures. When a doctor noticed the commotion, he took charge of the situation. Thankfully people got hold of the driver, absconding as usual. The teenager was brought dead to the hospital. Who to be blamed?

You can see that DTC buses, Police Control Room Vans and Police bikes don't follow the traffic rules. While everyone is waiting for red to turn green, they are crossing the pre-mature one only. Most of the policemen who are issuing helmet default fine (challan), are going for their round up without helmet. Should the common man issue him a challan?

Have you ever noticed that whenever a DTC bus is out of service, the passengers are standing near it, waiting for the next bus to come, while the conductor and driver are nowhere to be seen. You know that if the passengers of a DTC bus are irritating the bus driver and conductor, they can shut the bus down and can actually run away. Isn't it bizarre? Why would a passenger irrititate the driver, knowing a fact that if he actually gets irritated, he can ram his bus into a car, or can maybe cause any other accident?

It's high time the condition of public transport be improved. Let public conveyance be public convenience. DTC should not only take responsibility of the reckless driving of their drivers, but it should either terminate them or bring a change in them. It should make people use the DTC, not fear it.

Posted in Public Interest.