The road divider - chennai shtyle

Concrete Road Dividers are everywhere these days in Chennai. These are meant to protect unruly and reckless four-wheeler drivers whose population is on the rise in Chennai in the last couple of years.

These are imposing looking triangular mass of concrete that stands in the middle of the road in smaller roads or in larger roads a wall of heavy rocks that makes the other side of the road look like some form of fortress.

In the smaller roads (the picture shown here was shot near Perambur railway station some time ago, I am not sure about the current situation, for a long period of time the half-completed concrete structure with iron rods jutting out stood out in the middle of the road in a busy road where people cross in a hurry for catching trains and buses), the situation leads to chaotic scenarios. It is not uncommon to see many elders having to ascend these mini-hills to reach the other side; and women suffer the humiliation of having to lift their dresses (particularly if they were wearing the traditional saree) to their knees and climb on top so as to jump to the other side with no guarantee that one of the on rushing vehicles will not hit them; children sprint across roads and climb such medians as though it were a steeple chase.

In larger roads it is even more painful, some macabre sense of humour of the corporation has made it place plastic statues of deer and rabbits in the middle of urgently redone and replanted road dividers in the middle of main roads. It has to be seen to be believed, this gargoyle is worse than the plastic penguins and monkeys that lined up as garbage bins in every bus stop.

It would be worth a study to understand how many plastic the very "green"
chennai corporation installs through its sign boards all of which are now flex
printed, in ugly animal statues across the city and in the meaningless and at
times utterly confusing road signs across the city.

Was shocked to recently see a young chap walking right through the median in the middle of Poonamallee high road talking on a cell phone.

The total fourwheeler population in Chennai, I was recently told was around 5-6 lakhs, that is less than a tenth of the city. Why does the corporation want to give so much protection to so few car drivers? They occupy more road space, cause more traffic congestion, has resulted in certainly more accidents that have not been reported.

An interesting story I heard from a taxi driver recently - He was just
about to enter the Ramachandra Hospital in Porur when a lady doctor came and
parked right behind him also intending to turn, but, she did more, she applied
her brakes rather late resulting in a light bump to the taxi! The doctor
immediately rushed out told the driver that she would pay him any amount of money
but did not want to make a scene in front of the hospital on the road, needless
to say, the taxi driver made a handsome pocket money that afternoon.

There are many such instances that are not reported, but the point I make is why should the city permit such a rapid growth in car population when it cannot handle the same? Did we promise to buy so many numbers when we donated prime farm lands for Hyundai and Ford to set up their factories near the city? Who sponsors the rapid increase in the road dividers? Why are they so pedestrian un-friendly?