Yield mode
If you do not know about the great Indian traffic madness, check out videos on youtube. Most of them are not far removed from reality.
After coming back to India, I have been trying my best to not drive any vehicle. But, occasionally, I am having to drive so as to ferry dad / some old people around. I noticed a lot of things that I never noticed when I was driving here once upon a time. The most important thing is the extremely high amount of unnecessary honking. As I was trying to reduce my personal contribution to the noise pollution, I found that the best way to reduce honking was to not compete with others for the road. I am terming this new driving technique that I am following as the yield mode driving.
Yield mode driving is to just yield the right to use the road to anyone and everyone who competes for it. Its almost a spiritual practice as it requires extreme presence every moment to actively look out for people who are competing for the road with you at that moment. It might immediately appear to be an extremely slow way of driving but it actually is not. I have been trying it out, albeit not always in peak hour traffic, and have found it to be be quite useful. My estimate is that there is not more than 10% increase in driving time even in the most extreme case. The main advantages that I have found are:
If you do not know about the great Indian traffic madness, check out videos on youtube. Most of them are not far removed from reality.
After coming back to India, I have been trying my best to not drive any vehicle. But, occasionally, I am having to drive so as to ferry dad / some old people around. I noticed a lot of things that I never noticed when I was driving here once upon a time. The most important thing is the extremely high amount of unnecessary honking. As I was trying to reduce my personal contribution to the noise pollution, I found that the best way to reduce honking was to not compete with others for the road. I am terming this new driving technique that I am following as the yield mode driving.
Yield mode driving is to just yield the right to use the road to anyone and everyone who competes for it. Its almost a spiritual practice as it requires extreme presence every moment to actively look out for people who are competing for the road with you at that moment. It might immediately appear to be an extremely slow way of driving but it actually is not. I have been trying it out, albeit not always in peak hour traffic, and have found it to be be quite useful. My estimate is that there is not more than 10% increase in driving time even in the most extreme case. The main advantages that I have found are:
- It is much more safer.
- One uses the horn extremely rarely and that does go a long way in reducing the Indian traffic madness. I have driven about 100 kms inside the city and through arterial roads in the last two weeks and have had to use the horn (not blare, not honk, just a simple small sounding) only about 4 times in that.
- Increases the fraction of time of the day one has one pointedness of mind and that in itself is a good start for a spiritual practice.
To some, this might look as a no-brainer but when the system is in a Nash equilibrium whose cost is way over the optimal cost, the pressure on every infinitesimal agent to conform to the average strategy is extremely high. If you drive in India, try this for a week and count the number of times that you had to use your horn. I am sure that it would go down significantly. Happy, safe and minimal noise driving to all of you!
1 comment:
Great post Partha. I have also noticed that the increase in driving time is minimal through this practice. It is more the attitude of the mind that goes through a remarkable transformation. When we replace competition & speed with goodwill & mindfulness, inadvertently overall productivity increases. A principle we often see manifested in nature. [ref: http://autobiographyofanunknownmoment.blogspot.com/2009/05/traffic-meditation.html]
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