The following picture is of a school in Vienna on the Graf Starhemberger Strasse. Around 2 pm when the school closed for the day, mothers have come to take their children back home. There is not a single child being taken home in a car. They are either walking or being taken on a cycle. No cars can enter this street !!
Contrast this with a school in Gurgaon – The prestigious Shriram School that is inside the Regency Park building. When the school closes for the day at 2.30 or 3 pm, there is a traffic jam outside the school.
One of the Uber drivers told us that the problem in Delhi is because each car has one person … there is no car pooling. What a good insight by a person whom we generally assume to be uneducated. The social status signalling that a car brand offers is very important to the Dilliwallah… And that thought is sowed from when a child is young. Why can’t it be mandatory for school children to only use the school bus? I understand that we are some years away from making the roads safer to walk or cycle but everyone can travel in a school bus. Reduces pollution as well.
Maybe the government needs to intervene here too … Dilliwallahs won’t learn otherwise :).