A few days ago, a video from the 30th of July 2021, took Indian social media by storm. It featured a woman repeatedly slapping a man— a cab driver, and breaking his phone at a zebra crossing in Lucknow, all while holding up the traffic behind them. Why? She claimed that she was hit by his car while crossing the road. Of course, CCTV footage showed the public and police officers that that wasn’t the case and that she was crossing during heavy moving traffic.
The whole country had their own opinions to express on the matter, and rightfully so. Violence, regardless of gender, is never the answer to any situation. Perhaps all of this could have been avoided if people in India stopped at zebra crossings and followed basic road etiquette.
Near accidents and actual accidents are rather commonplace in India. According to a road accident report conducted by the Union Transport Ministry in 2019, nearly 62 pedestrians die every single day in India. The country saw an 84% mortality rate rise from 2015 to 2019 and one can only guess how much more it has risen now in 2021.
In the era of horse-drawn carriages and mud roads, zebra crossings were simply nonexistent. It was only during the start of the 20th century, when automobiles such as cars and motorbikes became popular and the new mode of transport, that these striped walkways come into the picture.
With newfound accidents occurring, the English government decided to come up with a solution to make the roads safer for everyone. And so the idea of creating a special pedestrian crossing was experimented on in the 1930s. This lowered the rate of pedestrian accidents but didn’t stop them from still occurring. In order to make the crossing easily recognised by drivers and pedestrians, the English government painted white stripes on the crossing in 1951.
Upon observing this new experimental painted pedestrian crossing a member of parliament Jim Callaghan remarked that the stripes reminded him of a Zebra and hence the term Zebra Crossing was born.
Nearly 70 plus years later, all our streets here in India are painted with these white parallel lines at several different points. But do riders and drivers ever stop and observe it? Aside from the rare courtesy person, no one ever stops. It is only when something tragic happens that we wish we had followed the rules in the first place.
Be it a busy road or an open, empty one— we here at Roadfolk Magazine urge you to take a second out and stop at a zebra crossing if you can see someone standing near it, waiting to cross. It’s these tiny little things that make our roads a much safer place for each of us. In the wise words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Written By Jessica Albuquerque,
A master of being a Jack of all Trades, A method in madness some may say. I’m just a girl on a never-ending journey, Standing on the precipice of my next big story.
Week 31, August 2021
