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Driving Skills in Goa: What Driving Skills?
Valmiki Faleiro
Bad roads and too
many vehicles do not cause accidents. People who drive them do. Abysmal
driving skills and an appalling lack of road sense are the conjoined
twins primarily responsible for death and misery on Goa’s roads.
Goa (must be like the rest of the country, considering outstation
drivers involved in road accidents here) produces drivers licensed to
kill and maim, or get killed and maimed. Sure, we have driving schools,
a licensing system, RTO, Traffic Police and even a State Road Safety
Council, besides NGOs like MARG and IRTE, Delhi-based Institute of Road
Traffic Education (since exited) – and a little under two deaths per
day, round the year.
(More on the agencies another Sunday. Today, we’ll take a sampling of
our four-wheeler driving skills. And on *road sense* next Sunday.)
Fact is today in Goa the moment a learner barely knows to start a
vehicle, move forward, change gears, steer and read road signage, s/he
is issued a regular driving license (for a price, of course – nothing
gets done at RTO without bribe or a politician’s favour in lieu.)
The system generates drivers who cannot park in reverse gear (the
efficient way of parking) within sufficient space between two street
side vehicles. Few can do it in reverse even at angular parking slots.
Most would be out of depth in a metro city parking lot puddle.
Ask a driver to start and move forward on an uphill road, without
rolling backwards. Or the other way round, to reverse on a down slope,
without falling an inch forward. How many are taught the function and
use of a handbrake?
How many drivers can keep a vehicle standstill with engine running and
gear engaged on an uphill, without braking, but by balancing the clutch
and accelerator? While this maneuver will certainly do no much good for
one’s vehicle, it will do a world of good to one’s driving – to inch
forward in a traffic jam on a climb, for example.
(This is in fact one of the earliest and best confidence-building skills
an instructor can impart to a learner. Personally, this is my test for
any young relative or friend who claims knowing to drive. I ask them to
drive me to the Monte uphill and demonstrate their car control, by
bringing the running vehicle to stationary position, hold it that way
for some moments, then inch forward, halt again, move, stop, then start,
move ahead without rolling backwards, etc. – all without touching the
brake pedal.)
Another skill seldom imparted to learners is the simultaneous use of the
brake and accelerator pedals with the right foot (heel on accelerator,
toes turned on the brake pedal) – not a very neat thing to do, I admit,
but one that’d come handy in an emergency, like when the hand brake
cable sags or snaps on an uphill.
How many learners are taught to slow down by rapid shifting into lower
gears, than by braking? Cultivating the habit of relying more on gears
than on brakes (middle- and lower-end cars do not come with ABS) can be
paying. Vehicles skid in monsoons due to sudden braking. Safe drivers
will habitually use gears to slow down, brakes only to halt.
How many drivers will routinely overtake only in third or lower gear,
NEVER in top or overdrive? Braking in lower gears is far more effective
and safe … one never knows when someone or something will choose to
cross the road from the blind side just while overtaking! These are but
a few safe driving skills that need to be imparted to learners and, over
time, cultivated as habits.
Learning safe skills and developing a quick reflex are, to be sure,
insufficient to survive Goa’s roads. You may drive safely, but still get
hit by a reckless dumbo. One needs to learn to drive defensively, and
more. An excellent bible on driving is Dr. P.S. Pasricha’s “The Driver’s
Manual.” Goa government must get rights to bulk-print and prescribe it
as compulsory text to anyone who gets behind the wheel or the handlebars
– starting with driving school instructors, RTO and Traffic Police
officials, of course!
TAILPIECE: Advocate, journalist and former MLA of Margao, the respected
Uday Bhembre, is known for profound thinking, fine way with words, and
excellent oratory. Not driving. Both Udaybab and his wife, daughter of a
wealthy family from Curchorem, took driving lessons. Whilst the wife
went on to become a proficient driver, Udaybab preferred the seat by the
side. Or at the back, when chauffeured.
His predecessor, son of one of Goa’s leading car dealers, Babu Naik,
always preferred his black Mercedes, much as *driving* from the rear
seat – whether in politics or in the Merc180. Babu’s predecessor,
Vassudev (Anna) Sarmalkar, also loved his Peugeots, chauffeured!
Digambar Kamat is the only Margao MLA who always drove his cars … until
he became minister, that is.
Valmiki Faleiro
March 19, 2006 |
