The Dumb Hyderabadi Motorists

We Hyderabadi motorists really are a dumb lot and one needn’t take random IQ tests to find out this fact. One only has to stand at any traffic junction to know how dumb we actually are. In Hyderabad there are usually more cops at traffic signals than in police stations. At any given time one can find not less than half a dozen traffic cops at traffic signals. Traffic signals, in the first place, I don’t need to explain here, were conceived so there wouldn’t be any need for cops to regulate the traffic.

Anyone would think that people living in such a big city as ours (we are forty million strong) would be fairly intelligent enough to understand the principle behind traffic signals and how they work. Any motorist with a brain bigger than a bird’s will know that red means stop and green means go. Not us Hyderabadis, sir. We actually need the cops to tell us to move when the signal turns green and to stop when the signal turns red. We cannot figure this simple thing. That is how dumb we Hyderabadis are.

As if it isn’t enough there are such dumb people we have a lot of motorists who don’t stop even after the cops signal us to stop or move when the traffic lights change. These super dumb motorists don’t move until the cop blows his whistle loud enough to burst the ear drums. Just in case blowing the whistle isn’t enough to get us moving, the cops have not just batons but batons with flashing lights which they wave at us frantically to move or stop. But even then we don’t act, at least some of us. Not until the traffic stop sticks his face close to our faces and lets go of the choicest abuses do we realize that the signals have changed.

So much for being a Hyderabadi motorist.