Another 'Interesting' Indian Idea

As I have written about many many times before, the traffic situation in Bangalore is nothing short of bonkers !! There are currently approximately 8 million vehicles 'registered' (note that there are a huge number of unregistered vehicles driving around Bangalore). With this number of vehicles due to increase by 25% in the next two years with the increasing growth of the city, the government needs to seriously consider some solutions to the ongoing issues.

With this increase in vehicles, there is also an equal increase in the number of traffic violations. Most of my complaints in Bangalore are solely based around driving. The inability for anyone to drive using the 'few' road rules that there are, unroadworthy vehicles, horrendous road conditions, drivers with absolutely no driving skills, the thousands of speed bumps that are more like mountains, the lack of roundabouts so U-Turns are needed EVERYWHERE making every trip twice as long, but mainly it’s the lack of ‘lane discipline’!! No one, and I mean no one, sticks to their lane, no one looks or watches when changing lanes or entering a road from a side street.  So as you can imagine the chaos, accidents and general congestion this causes is insane. Buses are never in the right lanes, bikes go wherever they want and trucks are a law unto themselves. With all these infringements you would think there would be a huge opportunity for the government to make some money with fines. Let’s not discuss corruption now……...

We do see a lot of policemen around Bangalore. However, most of them are on foot with a baton in hand not really doing very much. So, with all of these violations going undetected, the Bangalore government has come up with an ingenious idea to ensure people follow the ‘rules’ (nonexistent as they may be).

They have dressed up mannequins as police officers........ and they have placed them at ‘strategic’ intersections to ‘deter’ drivers from breaking the ‘rules’. Can you believe it ? The evidence is below.  They believe that drivers will be 'tricked' in to thinking these are real traffic cops about to issue a fine !!!!

They move them around every couple of days to keep people on their toes and sometimes replace a mannequin with an actual real officer, not sure this is making any difference either. Well, I think the only thing it has done is caused more chaos with people stopping to have selfies with the ‘police officer’!!   Like we did below.

Only in India !!

The only Santa we will see this year !!

Now, is that a 'Police Officer' moonlighting as Santa  ?