The plight of public transport commuters

Hi All..today I have decided to write a bit on our public transportation facilities, atleast in the city I live in and how commuters have to go through a lot of disgust and irritation..

I have been a commuter for a long time..atleast till I was in college..the way the conductor or the driver behave towards commuters has been unacceptable in many ways..

To quote one such incident, I was in Adyar on Saturday, to pick up lunch from one of the famous city hotels..as I was leaving..a bus came to a grinding halt near the place I had parked my bike..an old man, probably in his late 60's..who was waiting to get off the bus, just fell off the bus because the driver had just decided to stop the vehicle..the old man had a bad fall..and his head hit the road..he fell inches near the wheel and he was bleeding badly ..the driver and the conductor just peeped out of the bus to ensure the person was alive and drove off..the old man who was still bleeding profusely was then helped by a few onlookers (which included me) and was in a state of shock for sometime before we got to know where he lived..we then put him inside an autorickshaw (some of them are considerate..but auto's will be an other topic we will speak about :-) ) who said he would take him to a hospital and then drop him home..fortunately the person was staying close by and he was able to manage himself..

This brings us to a discussion on how good are our public transport services, especially bus services. Chennai has always boasted of frequent bus services but we are treated daily to the sight of a flurry of over crowded buses with people hanging from all corners of the bus and stranded passengers beside buses that have broken down..thanks to the poor maintenance..we also see buses "cutting" signals as if they own the roads..and one wonders why our cops never catch them..or were fines made only for the two wheelers and four wheelers (cars)?

The State Government needs to take a serious stand..it is not only responsible for providing good roads for people to travel on but also ensure that the millions of people who use public transportation use the system with the confidence that they will reach work and reach home in peace and in full shape..

Cheers
~N~