While factors like a low global budget for road safety ($10 million annually, as opposed to $1.9 billion for tackling malaria) are hindrances to road safety across the world, the issue pertaining particularly to India is somewhat different – that is, a complete breakdown in the systems of the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) and their regulations.
The legal process, as laid out in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989, for a citizen to obtain a driver's license in India seem as fit as that for any other developed country, but the actual implementation of the law is a complete farce. And while local traffic police & officials struggle to tackle mass violations of laws by drivers on the roads, it escapes me how the complete failure of the RTO in its license granting process goes unaddressed.
The findings of a combined study by individuals from NYU, Harvard, the Chicago GSB and World Bank titled Obtaining a Driving License in India: An experimental approach to Studying Corruption statistically show exactly what one's personal experiences on the ground reveal. Having lived in the city (and obtained a drivers' licence from there myself), lets take Ahmedabad as prime example. The RTO building is grossly over crowded. The bureaucracy is such that on average it can take at least 3-4 trips to the RTO just to obtain a learners' license. The queues are endless often leading all the way outside the building, forcing applicants to stand for hours under the sun in the scorching heat. So while an honest individual might choose to follow the lawful procedure, it should come as no surprise why most people seek a way to ease the process.
Enter: Agents. Agents (a.k.a. "facilitators" or "consultants") are people who help individuals obtain services and make the process of obtaining a license smooth, through personal connections with the government bureaucracy and an in depth knowledge of the procedures. Agents, while illegal, are an established institution for obtaining licenses, passports and other services through the government system. While most people use agents to get past the bureaucracy, many others do so to avoid taking (or retaking) the final road test sometimes required to obtain a permanent license. An agent will help you get all the paperwork in order with all the signatures required without the hassle of having to run around and stand in queues – all for a price. The agents also come in handy if you don't have all the required documents necessary for completing your application (like a birth-date verification certificate or proof of address) or even better, to skip the test in case you don't really know how to drive. Agents, through their connections with the license granting officers, will get your application passed and license issued by subverting the system. Of course, the 'alternate' system works flawlessly since the licensing officers get a consistent cut from the agents' fee charged to the applicant.
This 'alternate' system is sensitive to objective criteria, such as missing documents (resulting in higher prices charged by the agent for more missing documents), however totally blind to the individual's ability to drive (the agent can get you a license anyway, with no hike in price). While the CMV Rules state that passing an oral examination of the basic Rules of the Road Regulations is mandatory for anyone to be given a Temporary Driving License (i.e. a learners' license), the Ahmedabad RTO rearly even mentions the existence of the oral test required to obtain the learner's license, even if applied directly & not with help of an agent. Only one of several friends of mine who have obtained their learners' license in Ahmedabad have ever had to take the pre-learners' license test. In fact, that particular friend considered herself 'unlucky' to have been asked to take the test.
The result: hundreds of people everyday, regardless of their ability and knowledge of road regulations, get granted the license to drive. While most people learn how to drive without bumping into things anyway, almost no one learns anything about traffic rules for defensive driving. Its a whole different discussion as to why people here don't have basic courtesy, but turning without signaling, overtaking in a tight spot, parking wherever the hell one wants, and paying no heed to a pedestrian crossing even when there's an elderly person trying to cross the street are all incidents that are way too common. In fact, when I stop my car to let a woman with two children cross the street, I get a strange look that says "uh...what're you doing, why did you stop? You mean I can cross?!" It takes just one impatient driver to cross a red light when there's no policeman manning the junction for the entire lot of drivers behind him or her to also break the law. Total chaos and gridlock at an un-policed intersection come as no surprise. And its not that people don't know the rules, it doesn't take more than a 1st grader to know that you're supposed to stop at a red light, but its that people choose not to follow them.
An analysis of the situation reveals many interconnected aspects as matters of concern. Of course, a clean up of the mess at the RTO needs to be the first issue to be addressed. Statistics of the study mentioned earlier show that almost all corruption takes place through agents. While it is close to impossible to stem the corruption within the government bureaucracy (since it is so deep and at every level), the agents are not employed by the government. Therefore it would seem rather simple to implement the banning / arresting of agents on the RTO premises. This would force individuals to comply with the legal system, enforcing the taking of tests, and in turn encourage a sincere effort on the part of applicants to learn and understand traffic rules. (Banning agents would also however require the RTO to rework their application procedure to make the entire process less confusing to the consumers – confusion, according to the study was one of the main reasons for applicants switching to agents.) Yet that doesn't seem like it would solve the problem either, since not knowing the rules is only a small part of the road traffic problem. One cannot, at least at this level, teach people courtesy and morals. Punishment for hard offences, such as running a red light are difficult enough to enforce given the large scale of violations on the roads. Enforcing the helmet law for motorcyclists is a joke for a traffic police official when more people ride without helmets than with. And with the country's massive population and limited infrastructure, it would be impossible for a system of automatic cameras capturing offences to ever work efficiently. In countries in the west, most drivers will obey a stop sign, even if it is on an obviously empty junction, with no traffic to seemingly require the stop, and no police or cameras enforcing the action. Even where rash driving and breaking the law are exceptions to the norm, systems of catching culprits on camera fail to deliver punishments due to the challenges of timely fine collection. In the English county of Bedfordshire alone (with a driving age population of approx. 300,000), about 250 offences get caught on camera each month. For offences between January and April 2005, Bedfordshire had failed to collect over £32,000 worth of fines due to the challenges of collecting fines in time (England has a max 6-month collection rule).
As is the case across the world with all aspects of law-breaking, behavioral scientists, sociologists and policy-makers need to seriously rethink the models of punitive actions and their success in preventing further violations. While setting the systems right at the RTO might not curb reckless driving, it must be done. Locking down on the 'alternate' system will send a strong message out to the public: the state will not tolerate a bending of the rules.
The bribery, of course, doesn't stop at the RTO. A person running through a red light and having been caught, can most often offer the cop enough money for chai nasta and get away without getting a ticket. Which brings one to the hopeless conclusion that unless rampant corruption at all levels in the government is brought under control, to put it frankly, this country is doomed.
Labels: corruption, government, india
