India Needs BS99!!

The Rocket Ships Among Us

The moment some people enter a vehicle in India, something seems to happen to them. They suddenly feel that they own the road and that the vehicle they are driving is not a car, bike or auto but a rocket ship. Rules don't matter much after that. Traffic etiquette doesn't matter either. All that matters is getting to the destination by somehow travelling through space-time and reaching there in zero seconds — or, even better, before they have left home!

Once that becomes the objective, everything else becomes negotiable. Pavements, shoulders, the wrong side of the road and microscopic gaps between vehicles all become perfectly legitimate driving surfaces. If it were physically possible, I suspect some motorists would drive over us as well. The worst affected are probably pedestrians, for whom pavements and zebra crossings offer no particular guarantee of safety. We Indians are remarkably good at adjusting to everything around us, but should we have to keep adjusting to indiscipline on our roads forever?

Cars, at least in my experience, are still somewhat manageable. But it is the two-wheelers that really keep you on your toes. They can overtake you from the left or right, squeeze into a gap barely wider than their handlebar and then look offended that you did not anticipate their arrival. Whether they are following the traffic rules or breaking every one of them, somehow it remains your responsibility to make space.

Sometimes, You Just Get Lucky

I used to love driving. For a very long time, it was a passion for me, but the explosion in traffic volume and increasing indiscipline on our roads have slowly taken some of that pleasure away. Every time I get into the car today, I seem to be doing several jobs simultaneously: driving my own car, predicting what the bike beside me might do, watching the auto that has somehow invented a third lane, checking whether somebody is coming towards me on my side of the road, anticipating the pedestrian who has chosen that exact moment to cross, and looking out for buffaloes, cows and dogs that can suddenly decide to participate in traffic without warning. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I also need to maintain sufficient vocabulary to swear at everybody involved. Fortunately, after all these years of driving, I have built up a fairly extensive vocabulary. Driving has become a full-stack activity requiring concentration, anticipation, reflexes and occasionally a degree of divine intervention.

Over nearly three decades of driving, I have had enough near misses to know that this is not merely irritating. One incident that remains vividly in my memory happened many years ago when I was driving my Santro from Chennai to Bangalore. Somewhere near Ranipet, I was travelling at around 90 kmph when a TVS 50 suddenly entered the highway from my right. The rider saw my car approaching, appeared completely unsure of what to do and began moving zigzag across the highway.

At that speed, I had seconds to react, very little room to manoeuvre and absolutely no idea which direction he would choose next. Even today, I don't know exactly how I managed to avoid hitting him. Definitely divine intervention! There have been many such incidents and interventions over the years, both on city roads and highways. On particularly bad days, reaching home unscathed genuinely feels like an achievement. That should never become our definition of a successful commute.

We Know the Sensible Solutions

It is not as though we don't know what needs to be done. We have cameras, fines and traffic police, although enforcement could certainly be much stricter and more consistent. We need better policing, better road design and, most importantly, better driver education and discipline. That education has to begin at school and at home, because traffic rules should not be something we follow only when a policeman is watching. The road is a shared public space, and our behaviour can put somebody else's life at risk.

But most of these are long-term solutions. Education takes years, cultural change takes longer, and enforcement depends on somebody noticing the offence and eventually imposing a consequence. As a common citizen driving today, however, I have a more immediate requirement. If somebody comes towards me on the wrong side of the road, I don't want him to discover road discipline sometime in 2047.

I want immediate feedback.

And since nobody seems to be offering it, I have decided to design the solution myself.

The National Traffic Reform Programme

After considerable thought and absolutely no consultation with anybody qualified to comment on the subject, I have developed what I believe could transform Indian roads: the National Traffic Reform Programme — NTRP.

I am a big fan of our Prime Minister, and I have taken a leaf out of his book by giving my programme an acronym. There is something wonderfully official about an idea once it acquires a few capital letters. Give it an acronym, launch a portal and create an app, and suddenly it feels like national policy.

So NTRP was born.

The principle behind NTRP is simple: instead of waiting decades for road behaviour to change, the road itself should provide immediate feedback.

My first proposal is a retractable mechanical arm mounted at the front of every car. When somebody unnecessarily blocks the road, stops diagonally in the middle of traffic or decides that this is the ideal location to conduct a conversation with another motorist, the arm extends and gently clears the obstruction. The word gently is important. We are, after all, a civilised society.

Much of the interesting activity on Indian roads, however, happens beside the car. So we need two additional retractable arms, one on either side, each fitted with a large boxing glove. A biker begins squeezing into a gap that doesn't exist? The glove emerges politely. Someone comes towards you on the wrong side and expects you to move out of his way? The glove becomes visible. I suspect we may not even need physical contact. Merely seeing a boxing glove slowly emerge from the side of a car should be enough to awaken considerable civic responsibility.

Naturally, the system could have different settings depending on the seriousness of the offence: Gentle Reminder, Strong Suggestion, and You Really Shouldn't Have Done That.

High Beams, Horns and Other Forms of Torture

NTRP also needs to address traffic etiquette. Take high beams. Some motorists seem to believe that headlights are meant to conduct an ophthalmological examination of every driver approaching from the opposite direction. For them, I propose Automated High-Beam Reflection Technology — AHBRT, which safely gives the offending motorist a symbolic taste of his own brilliance. My original idea involved a sharply focused counter-light, but two blinded motorists approaching each other at speed presented certain minor implementation challenges.

Then there is unnecessary honking. Fifty vehicles are waiting at a red signal, there is nowhere anybody can go, and yet somebody behind starts honking. Does he expect the forty-nine vehicles ahead to recognise his importance and collectively evaporate? NTRP therefore includes an Automated Horn Reciprocity System (AHRS): every unnecessary horn is played back inside the offending vehicle for twice the duration. I expect our most enthusiastic honkers to discover inner peace rather quickly.

These ideas are useful, but I still felt NTRP needed one definitive mechanism for serious offenders.

That was when I remembered James Bond.

The James Bond Solution

Those old James Bond cars were magnificent. Bond would be driving along quite normally, casually flip a switch on the dashboard and suddenly a perfectly innocent-looking car would reveal capabilities nobody outside Q Branch knew existed.

That is precisely what Indian traffic needs.

Under NTRP, every car will have a concealed compartment built into the front. Somewhere on the dashboard will be a switch protected by a transparent cover, so nobody accidentally activates the system while trying to turn on the air-conditioning.

Imagine someone coming towards you on the wrong side. He has already decided that you will move left and make space for him because that is what everybody has always done. You see him, he sees you, and instead of honking or shouting, you calmly lift the transparent cover and flip the switch.

A small panel in the front of the car slowly opens, and from inside emerges a gun.

Before anybody calls the police, let me clarify that there are no bullets in this gun. I may have spent nearly three decades getting irritated with Indian motorists, but I am not homicidal.

The gun fires a dart.

And the dart contains a diarrhoea shot.

Yes, you read that right. A diarrhoea shot!

Now we have immediate feedback.

Someone comes down the wrong side? Dart. Someone jumps a red signal? Dart. A biker decides that the pavement is an excellent alternative to the congested road? Dart. Someone cuts across three lanes without warning because missing a U-turn apparently threatens the future of his entire family? Dart.

There is no road rage or argument through the window. The NTRP simply administers immediate behavioural feedback, after which both motorists can continue towards their respective destinations, although one of them may shortly have to modify his.

Because the James Bond launcher only covers what is in front of the car, every certified law-abiding citizen will also receive a handheld version using exactly the same darts. Pedestrians, considering everything they have endured on our roads, should certainly qualify for the compact version.

After the first few weeks, I suspect we may not even need to fire very often. A biker approaches from the wrong side, notices the little panel opening in front of my car and suddenly the Motor Vehicles Act flashes before his eyes. Civic responsibility awakens somewhere deep inside him, and he executes the most disciplined U-turn in the history of Indian motoring.

Forget BS7. India Needs BS99

A national programme as important as NTRP cannot depend on automobile manufacturers implementing these capabilities however they please. We need standards.

Now, before the automobile experts come after me, I know that Bharat Stage standards are meant for vehicle emissions. But looking at the way we drive, emissions are hardly the only thing that needs regulating. So I am borrowing the nomenclature.

We already had BS3, BS4 and BS6. Given the magnitude of our traffic problem, forget BS7 and BS8. For NTRP, I propose BS99 — the Bharat Stage standard that has absolutely nothing to do with emissions and everything to do with surviving Indian traffic.

Under BS99, every new vehicle will support the complete NTRP specification: traffic-clearing arm, side-mounted boxing gloves, AHBRT, AHRS and the concealed diarrhoea-dart launcher. Manufacturers can still differentiate their variants. The base model might get a manually aimed single-shot launcher, while the top-end version gets a camera-assisted system with automatic violation detection.

Automobile reviews will become much more interesting. Along with steering feedback, suspension, rear-seat comfort and mileage, reviewers can tell us how quickly the launcher acquires a wrong-side biker. Used-car advertisements will change too: Single owner. Full service history. BS99 compliant. Boxing gloves recently replaced. Only 17 darts fired.

Punishment Must Fit the Crime

Obviously, even diarrhoea cannot be administered without standards. The strength of the shot must correspond to the seriousness of the violation. A minor offence might produce one hour of digestive uncertainty. Wrong-side driving could attract four hours, signal jumping perhaps six, and driving on the pavement twelve.

If somebody manages to drive on the wrong side while simultaneously talking on the phone and honking continuously, the BS99 system will automatically select the premium formulation. At that point, my only advice to the gentleman would be to locate a restroom immediately. Repeat offenders would naturally qualify for enhanced dosage under the NTRP Habitual Offender Scheme.

Within a month, I genuinely believe Chennai traffic could become Scandinavian. People would stop at zebra crossings, motorcycles would remain inside lanes, pavements would return to pedestrians, indicators would be rediscovered and red traffic lights would finally acquire their intended meaning. Google Maps might even display a notification nobody in India has ever encountered before: “Unusually disciplined traffic ahead.”

Unfortunately, I Found an Architectural Problem

Just when I was beginning to feel rather proud of NTRP, my architect instincts interfered. Who decides who has committed the violation? From the perspective of a car driver, the biker is usually wrong. From the biker's perspective, the car driver is probably wrong. The auto driver believes both are wrong, while the pedestrian has legitimate reasons to believe that everyone operating anything with an engine is wrong.

Imagine a typical Chennai junction. A biker cuts in front of me and I administer immediate NTRP feedback. He believes I didn't give him enough space and fires a dart back at me. The auto driver behind us thinks both of us have blocked him and joins the programme. The pedestrian whom all three of us nearly hit now decides that justice requires intervention from his side as well. Within fifteen minutes, everybody at the junction has administered diarrhoea shots to everybody else.

The road becomes completely empty, but the nearest public toilet now has a two-kilometre queue. We have successfully solved India's traffic-congestion problem and created a national public-toilet infrastructure crisis.

As someone who has spent much of my professional life around technology and architecture, I find this strangely familiar. In software systems, you identify a performance bottleneck, optimise it beautifully and then discover that you have merely moved the bottleneck somewhere else. Under NTRP, road throughput becomes spectacular while the toilets crash. We haven't eliminated the queue. We have simply moved it.

NTRP Needs Governance

Clearly, we need governance. There will have to be Aadhaar-linked launchers, dashcam evidence, dosage standards, firing limits, audit trails and naturally an NTRP app. Disputes will inevitably arise. Somebody will insist that he wasn't driving on the wrong side but was merely temporarily directionally challenged. Another will claim that the traffic signal was somewhere between orange and red. A third will argue that riding on the pavement was unavoidable because the road was congested.

Clearly, we need an appeals body. I therefore propose the National Diarrhoea Tribunal — NDT.

Once again, I must acknowledge the inspiration provided by our beloved Prime Minister. NTRP, NDT, AHBRT, AHRS and BS99 already sound sufficiently official that I am beginning to wonder whether I should prepare a Cabinet note.

And once NTRP becomes successful, our entrepreneurial abilities will take over. Modified launchers, high-strength diarrhoea darts and counterfeit NTRP ammunition will inevitably appear. My beautifully simple solution to Indian traffic will, within months, have evolved into an enormous ecosystem involving regulators, apps, tribunals, certification bodies and black-market diarrhoea ammunition.

At which point, I suppose, we can safely declare the programme mature.

But Why Are We in Such a Hurry?

Underneath all this absurdity is something that genuinely worries me. People routinely risk their own lives and somebody else's merely to save a few seconds. We see motorists squeeze dangerously through traffic, change lanes repeatedly, jump signals and race ahead as though every second matters. Quite often, after watching somebody perform all these manoeuvres and disappear into the distance, I reach the next traffic signal and find the same person waiting beside me.

All that weaving, aggression, honking and risk — and what did he gain? Perhaps thirty seconds. Quite often, nothing at all.

That takes me back to where this story began. Why does entering a vehicle suddenly make us believe that time has to be compressed? Why does reaching somewhere five minutes earlier become important enough to justify frightening a pedestrian, squeezing another vehicle off the road or putting somebody's life at risk?

The problem on our roads is not simply infrastructure or policing. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost patience, consideration and the basic understanding that the person beside us has exactly the same right to reach home safely as we do. Better enforcement, road design and education will help, but ultimately some amount of discipline has to come from within us as well.

Until that happens, I suppose I will continue doing what millions of Indian motorists do every day: drive defensively, anticipate what others might do, occasionally swear, survive the journey and wonder why everybody is in such a hurry.

And if you happen to come towards me on the wrong side of the road and notice my hand slowly moving towards that little transparent cover on the dashboard, perhaps you should reconsider your choices.

After all, BS99 may still be awaiting government approval.

But the idea is ready.

So turn around.

And, just to be on the safe side, make a mental note of where the nearest restroom is.

Disclaimer

BS99, NTRP, NDT, AHBRT, AHRS, diarrhoea darts, boxing gloves, traffic-clearing arms and every other ridiculous invention in this article exist entirely in my imagination. This is satire, not a proposal to hurt, punish or take revenge on anyone. Please don't build any of them. Drive safely, follow the rules and let everyone else get home safely too.

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