A Noisy Welcome

Returning from his vacation, The Man from Madras Musings was entertained to a cacophony of car horns at the airport itself. A VIP was arriving and naturally required around 50 cars to escort him/her home. Waiting for his more humble and single conveyance, MMM could not help but muse on how the biggest traffic violators of our city are the very people who are supposed to implement the law.

Who will guard the guards themselves is an old Latin phrase and it perhaps applies most to our city.

The Magic of the ‘G’ Plate

MMM is not sure who hit upon the idea of painting the alphabet G on government number plates. But whoever it was, must have been a genius, for in one stroke it lifts all such cars above the purview of something as lowly as the law. Adorned with the G, these vehicles, and more importantly their drivers, violate every traffic regulation with impunity.

Consider the facts – if you have a G number plate you can drive on the wrong side of the road, and the policemen will salute you. You can do the same if you are a gig worker too, but then you do run the risk of being hauled up by the law.

Privileges on the Road

With a G number plate, you can have darkened windows so that the hoi polloi need not get to see who is inside. This, incidentally, is prohibited by law. Likewise, you can also sport a revolving light on the top, against which too there is a law.

And then you can have a chauffeur who uses just one hand and one leg – the hand presses the horn and the leg the accelerator. Most G vehicles don’t need a brake at all.

The Horns That Rule the Road

Government cars are also blessed with horns that are in a volume range by themselves. They are loud, incessant and demanding. You can make out a G vehicle horn anywhere on the road. There is a certain impatient and arrogant tone to it that seems to declare that the personage in the vehicle has no time for such things as traffic lights or pedestrians.

“Out of my way,” these vehicles seem to thunder. MMM can understand one or two government vehicles being in a hurry, but surely not all of them can be so all the time. If so, then our Government must be truly nimble-footed, which is not the experience that MMM has had of it.

Drivers or Passengers?

A couple of panjandrums with whom MMM has made bold to share his views on these G vehicles say it is the drivers who are at fault. But surely, whoever is being ferried about can also educate the driver on what is acceptable and what is not? MMM is fairly certain that these hair-raising car drives are as much the driver’s doing as it is also the passengers.

If only government cars were to begin obeying traffic rules, the rest of the city will also fall into place.

This article appeared in Madras Musings–https://madrasmusings.com/vol-35-no-11/short-n-snappy-229/

My book, Chennai, A Biography can be ordered–http://- https://sriramv.com/2021/12/27/how-to-buy-autographed-copies-of-chennai-a-biography-from-outstation/