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The desi way is the best

By: Santosh :+: Under: Blogs
On: ⋅ June 5, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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In a Freakonomics blog interview with Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book Traffic, he explains how street signs are almost useless in curbing speeding, how auto rickshaws are safer than on foot and how more unconventional methods like a cow on a street are more effective in controlling traffic. [Freakonomics blog interview]

Q: When I was in Delhi, I felt weirdly safer in an auto-rickshaw weaving past cars, motorcycles, and the occasional cow. Is there some logic to that or am I just insane?

A: Statistically, you’re much better off in an auto-rickshaw than on a motorbike or on foot in Delhi, though this is a complex question with many variables.
Also, in any city you’re safer in a car than you are in rural areas, where the bulk of fatalities happen. On cows in the street — Delhi’s former top traffic cop told me he was of two minds; yes, they obstruct traffic flow, but they also act as a calming influence on Delhi’s “rash” drivers. A cow is only a hazard if you drive in a way that doesn’t take into account the cow.

I rest my case.

On a tangential note, Tom Vanderbilt’s theory on road rage ….

What happens to most of us, in most driving conditions, is that we’re losing some of the key attributes that facilitate human cooperation and, in a larger sense, society.
Eye contact, for example, has been shown in any number of experiments to increase the chance of gaining cooperation — that’s why when drivers give you what was called on Seinfeld the “stare-ahead,” your chances that they’ll let you merge in ahead of them are greatly reduced.
Then there’s the anonymity in traffic — there’s no one to spread rumors or gossip about you about how bad your behavior was — not to mention the lack of consequences for acting like an idiot. It’s all strikingly similar to the way we act on the internet, in what’s called the “online disinhibition effect.”
We can lurk behind screen names (our car and license plate), say nasty things about people (honk, give the finger), and then sign off and never be heard from again (drive away).

…… can easily translate to behavior of humans online, e.g. trolls.

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