Honk more, wait more: Mumbai traffic police introduce the ‘punishing signal’ | Hacker News Reader

Honk more, wait more: Mumbai traffic police introduce the ‘punishing signal’

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Honking is very uncommon in Sweden, and I remember my driving instructor pointing out to me that the only time you ever use it is to call attention to avoid an immediate accident. In practice, I see many drivers not even doing this. I routinely see people jaywalking in urban environments and cars just stopping until they've crossed.

One thing that might be semi related to this is the entitlement of drivers. My view of Sweden is that most people accept that cities "belong" to pedestrians first hand, and cars need to be careful. In other parts of the world, the "get out of my way" entitlement of drivers is very apparent and I don't think it's very helpful.

> In practice, I see many drivers not even doing this. I routinely see people jaywalking in urban environments and cars just stopping until they've crossed.

Which is the correct thing to do. An immediate accident would be if a car was reversing out of a blind drive way, and another was approaching, and you're seeing the whole thing about to happen, but it isn't clear either of the two other drivers are. That's when you honk.

If you can mitigate an accident by simply stopping, then don't honk. It's generally only for things you can see is about to happen, that the others probably haven't seen, or is aware of. Whether or not the accident will involve yourself is secondary.

While I don't honk to punish people, I do (short)honk in case someone does something really stupid that could/almost caused an accident.

As a former full-time pedestrian: thanks. more than once it's reminded me to be more careful!

Stopping for a pedestrian won't save their life when another car zooms by you in the next lane, while your car is blocking their view. A pedestrian in the road is an emergency.

I'm not sure why you are downvoted. Jaywalking is bad for everyone: The pedestrians since it makes them at risk. The cars since it slows them down. Roads were made for cars and white cross-walks for pedestrians to cross them. If you don't like cars around, then remove the roads.

Roads were actually built for pedestrians first, jaywalking was 'invented' in the US https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3888104

"Jaywalking" isn't forbidden in Sweden.

The word "jay" is old American slang for "idiot", and the term was promoted by the car companies to push the blame for accidents onto pedestrians.

Nor the UK, where we are told that a pedestrian that is already in the road has "right of way" at all times.

Perhaps they shouldn't be there, but their safety around tons of fast-moving metal is the only important thing at that point.

"Right of way" in the UK means a legal right to use the road. Pedestrians have right of way on most UK roads (motorways being a notable exception). "Right of way" is sometimes used as slang for "right to proceed first when multiple road users are competing for the same part of the road", but the correct term for this, as used in the Highway Code, is "priority".

Just to build on this, pedestrians have priority at marked pedestrians crossings of course but also outside of marked crossings when crossing a smaller road where a car is on a main road and is wanting to turn into the smaller road.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/using-the-road-...

"Watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way"

>"Right of way" in the UK means a legal right to use the road. Pedestrians have right of way on most UK roads(motorways being a notable exception)

There are distinctions to be made, when it comes to 'Right(s) of way' but your bizarre and daredevil interpretation of what constitutes a legal route for pedestrians and the call to ignore common-sense road security, would only be considered by those who have a death wish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_way

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-of-way_(transportation)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_way_in_England_and_W...

Countryside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countryside_and_Rights_of_Way_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ramblers

I said nothing about safety, and made no calls to action.

Pedestrians have right of way on most UK roads(motorways being a notable exception

Your open-ended statement implies that legging it across a road is fine, as long as it isn't a motorway. This is not a safe guidance for the uninitiated.

It implies no such thing, and it is not guidance.

Your original statement was emphatic and conveys authority. Perhaps, I misinterpreted your riposte, as an intention to inform the reader.

The confusion probably arises because we 'give way' to the higher priority traffic.

Is "right of way" perhaps a naval term, primarily?

Apparently not:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Regulations_for_...

It varies by state, but in Connecticut pedestrians always have right of way, but you can still get a ticket for jaywalking.

It reflects the reality that, while cars should get out of the way of pedestrians, a car can't stop as easily as a human, so you can put yourself in danger by darting out into a street

I think generally the party who causes the accident is liable for damages in the accident, regardless of who gets a ticket for what they were doing at the time. Though in some states, the driver always pays for the pedestrian's bodily injury. So you need to swerve into anything else you can find (tree, ditch, etc.) to avoid that darting pedestrian.

Interesting.

Maybe we should call it "jaydriving" when a driver acts entitled and doesn't slow down.

That term (or at least "jay driver") seems to have been in use before "jaywalker" or "jaywalking"!

It's very amusing looking at the replies in this thread with widespread horn use because in the UK using the horn is very rare indeed. It is sometimes used to encourage someone to go at lights that have changed because the other driver is obviously not paying attention to driving a 1+ tonne vehicle, and used in anger when someone does a "dangerous" maneouvre eg. pulling out on someone at a roundabout, but I always think "if you have enough time to sound your horn, you have enough time to react (and therefore not honk)".

Having said this, there are an awful lot of very angry, selfish people on the roads as indicated by the "dash cam" videos on YouTube (where mostly it seems that the driver has submitted a video of a "appalling driving" but actually demonstrates their own inability to control their hot-headed exceedingly short temper in any rational sane manner, thereby indicting themselves rather than the "appalling" other driver).

Here's a good example, the driver at 3:42 in this video: https://youtu.be/GQLUOeo9cps?t=222

The cammer didn't even begin slowing down until their car's forward collision warning went off, and then tries to claim that the one in front of them "stopped like a bitch".

This driver learned nothing from the incident, and will continue to drive poorly.

Yes, was the driver with the camera not paying attention to anything in front of him?? He should try driving on motorways in the UK in rush hour, where the distance between you and the car in front is about a third of that footage, and everyone's doing 80mph. (Yes I attempt to increase the distance for safety purposes, and then people pull in because they think it is a "space").

Insane.

You're lucky. Here in France, honking is illegal (except for signalling immediate danger) yet people honk all the time and it's tolerated. I live in a city and it's a major nuisance. It's stressful for drivers (even more for cyclists) and extremely annoying for people living nearby. I really don't understand why this isn't taken more seriously.

I thought it was bad in France but now I live in Belgium and it's much worse. That's in Flanders, no idea about the rest of Belgium although I imagine Brussels should be worse on this regard.

People will honk just because they are stuck in traffic, and once one car starts honking, at least a few others will join them.

In my street in particular, this happens at least weekly at 7am and in front of a hospital, and if I walk up to them to tell them to stop because it's useless and disturbs everyone, they get even more angry obviously.

People don't like to be told they did something wrong

Interesting. Last time I was in a city in France, I noticed the whine of scooters more than honking, but I live in a big city so I may have just tuned the honking out.

Have you ever visited a city like Mumbai? In the larger cities of most less developed countries it's not only very accepted but even necessary for the safety of everyone to honk at every corner or crowded situation.

The main culprit is the staggering amount of scooters, that usually ignore all rules and zip through any opening they can find. You'll be saving lives by honking in every situation, people kind of count on it. I'm not surprised this behavior translates into an increase in meaningless honking at red traffic signs.

Not the person you replied to but I disagree with this.

I've been to Mumbai (and Delhi and a few other cities for that matter), and it is not for the safety.

Take Ho Chi Minh City for example. There are more scooters there than people, and honking is not much of a problem as in Mumbai. Scooter riders know how to make their way and they are super precise when pedestrians cross. Pedestrians don't wait for scooters to stop. You just cross the road, and scooters will go around you. In India, there is the reverse mentality that roads belong to vehicles and pedestrians just have to take care of themselves.

> I've been to Mumbai (and Delhi and a few other cities for that matter), and it is not for the safety.

I live in India, and a lot of times it is for safety. It's not always about people crossing the road. There are people walking on the road, shoulder-to-shoulder, four deep; there are scooters driving side by side as their drivers are having a conversation; there are car and scooter drivers talking on their cellphones edging along slowly, not stopping, not driving at the normal speed of traffic; there are people getting out of parking, backing into traffic, seemingly oblivious to you as they drive backwards into you while you're stopped or braking hard; there are cattle; there are dogs. 9 times out of 10 it is for safety.

The Mumbai traffic light honking is about people honking at vehicles stopped in front of them to start driving when there's still a few seconds left on the red light. That's what the cops are trying to prevent.

It should be fair to start with the premise that this behavior creates a noise pollution problem. Otherwise the authorities would not be working to curb it.

Everyone has an excuse, but two wrongs don't make a right. Drivers are not justified to create noise pollution because pedestrians or other drivers are indulging in inconsiderate behavior.

I've lived on both sides of the world and frankly, it all comes down to how the individual regards himself and his social obligations. S. Asia is notorious for it's poor regard of public spaces. These are foundational cultural concepts that I don't see changing any time soon.

Without a sense of personal responsibility the individual is powerless to act. The excuses you provide make the problem perpetually someone else's fault. The comment above spoke to the "entitlement of drivers" and this is the key to the whole issue.

In the west, I've seen known gangsters stop their limo to personally remove a single piece of litter from the street. These are people who explicitly live outside of the bounds of the law. This person could have made his chauffeur or assistant retrieve the trash, yet he took such pride in his neighborhood that he had to do it personally. The contrast is obvious.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968587/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_from_noise

No one is justifying impatient honking at traffic lights.

My "excuses" as you've put them are situations that occur everyday on Indian roads where honking is an alternative to colliding with and running over people and animals. Noise pollution is the lesser evil.

I would never indulge in causing that kind of situation to arise. That's the limit of what I can do. If faced with that situation my greater responsibility is to avoid a collision.

The alternative is to just slow down. If you are driving in a way that puts you at risk of hitting pedestrians, then you might want to look at that...

Obviously. Except when there are four two-wheelers tailgating you and braking would cause them to collide with you, or at least slow down all the traffic behind you so that everyone is now honking at you.

It's probably hard to understand what I'm talking about if one has never experienced traffic like this themselves.

Like I said, I've lived on both sides of the world. It is probably hard to understand the cultural norms of living without rampant noise pollution if you haven't experienced it first hand.

I'd love to move everyone in India to the other side of the world so they can pick up better cultural norms and such, but it seems an unrealistic proposition.

I have observed this .... it doesn't help that they count down the red to green change

This is famously bad design that had been abandoned by everyone who can afford to update.

> Scooter riders know how to make their way and they are super precise when pedestrians cross. Pedestrians don't wait for scooters to stop.

This actually describes India as much as Ho Chi Minh City.

Saigon was my idea of the worst possible honking habits, I can hardly imagine how it is in Mumbai if it's even worse.

But apart from honking, although I wouldn't call the roads "safe" for pedestrians, cars indeed don't really compete with pedestrians, everyone just tries to get along however they can.

I've spent my fair share of time on the road in developing countries.

Because of how everyone drives, honking is a necessity. It's how you know where other drivers/riders are without needing to see them, and when there's traffic all around, you can't only use your eyes.

I actually feel safer riding a motorbike in developing countries than I do in Australia, because at least drivers are aware and expecting me in somewhere like Vietnam.

Yes.

Do you believe that these behaviors are necessary and excusable because of the lack of development or that these countries are less developed because of these attitudes?

Which option is a proactive philosophy which promotes change?

In the current situation it is necessary, since it prevents accidents. The main problem is that there is simply too much traffic on poorly planned and barely maintained infrastructure, so in that sense development would "solve" the necessity of honking.

But that's a long term solution, which will require a lot of time and funding. A short term solution that does not involve a massive infrastructure overhaul is difficult. Perhaps a clever reflow AI could mitigate some of the problems in the near future. This is something that does need attention, because the air pollution in cities facing this problem is terrible.

Somehow other regions manage to handle traffic congestion without creating 85db of noise pollution.

Same in Poland. You have a legal obligation to honk a) to warn about imminent danger, b) when doing certain maneuvers (e.g. passing by, overtaking) in very low visibility conditions (e.g. dense fog). In built-up areas you'll get fined for honking for other reasons; on the countryside, you're only forbidden from "abusing" the horn.

Not sure how much culture plays into it - over here it's cars that own cities (not to the extent they do in the US, though).

> the only time you ever use it is to call attention to avoid an immediate accident.

It’s taught this way in the US as well, although it’s pretty often used to express anger.

> the "get out of my way" entitlement of drivers is very apparent.

Here the universities have the “car is a guest in the pedestrian’s space “ feeling but a lot of cities don’t (which was pretty dangerously confusing to me after a few years of college.)

Similarly in the UK, it's to alert other drivers to your presence. e.g. on a winding country road with no room to pass another road user safely, nor visibility around the corner.

But of course, 'I say, I am just here, let's not hit each other' does quite naturally decay into 'Oi, I'm just here, you nearly bloody hit me you prick'.

This casts an interesting light on my long-standing dislike for crosswalks: Everywhere else on the streets as a pedestrian, drivers will not expect me, therefore it is my, the pedestrian's, responsibility to stay safe. On crosswalks, it is the drivers' responsibility to stop to let me cross, whether they see me or not, which seems kind of unpredictable to me, and to children, too, I imagine.

As a pedestrian, I feel more comfortable assuming drivers' "get out of my way" mentality, because I cannot assume I was seen.

I imagine that at least some accidents happen in the shared windings of responsibilities between drivers and pedestrians that can grow into full-blown confusion - and accidents, where I'd rather prefer a simple, pessimistic solution for myself as a pedestrian.

> I routinely see people jaywalking in urban environments

Swap 'people jaywalking' with 'people trying to cross a road.'

Jaywalking is a ludicrous concept and even more ludicrous as something to make a legal issue.

It is pretty uncommon here too, although there certainly is an effect that mutates every driver to a choleric imbecile as soon as they get behind the wheel. Fascinating really.

As if those 5 seconds of waiting would ruin your whole day. In most cases it isn't even 5 seconds and honking nets you nothing besides animosity.

Given that, I wouldn't want to drive anything in India that is larger than a rickshaw. But those have very likely horns too if they want to survive. A busy road in India just looks like complete chaos.

In Germany if you don't start accelerating when the light turns yellow, the guy behind you will start honking.

> In Germany if you don't start accelerating when the light turns yellow, the guy behind you will start honking.

Don't generalize. Usually, you have some seconds until the driver behind you will honk. I normally count "21 - 22 - 23", then I honk if there hasn't been any reaction (restarting the engine, pressing the brake pedal, etc.). But your mileage my vary.

Maybe it's area dependant, in my city they definitely honk in under a second.

German car driver here. I don't use it as signal of anger, but as hint, that the driver in front has to refocus on the traffic again. (Others may still angry-honk of course)

I realize in Germany yellow comes before green (and not after, like America). But it still reminds me of this Simpsons clip;

https://youtu.be/QR10t-B9nYY

It comes before and after.

Green -> Yellow (go if you're still at a speed that stopping would be dangerous) -> Red -> Red & Yellow (get ready) -> Green

They do this in Tijuana too (in this case honk when the red is about to turn green). They clearly are not giving you a chance, you are always just presumed to be sleeping.

Anecdata. I can't remember that this happened to me more than like twice, and I've been driving here for 18ish years...

As they should, get a move on (not you specifically of course ;))

I once worked on a QA system for a car manufacturer. The idea was to data mine for commonly ocurring problems and then support a workflow to do root cause analysis and organize a fix in order to reduce warranty expenses.

One problem that had been identified was "Cars of this model produced in this factory have the horn fail very often within the warranty period".

The root cause analysis was: "This factory produces for the Indian market. The horn is designed for 50k activation cycles. Due to the higher use intensity in India, this is not sufficient."

They were still debating whether to install a more sturdy horn only in cars delivered to India or everywhere.

We were told about this in a quality workshop.

Had a similar issue once because we had lots of issues being reported from India. We found out drivers were opening the door while driving, triggering software problems, since when stopped the start-stop mechanism would assume the driver left the vehicle and would not start again.

Turns out it's very common in India to chew betel nuts, open the door and spit it out. So India now has different software here.

This is a clear example of software being too clever for its own good. The car is being started, so clearly there's someone inside, despite your fancy theories. The fix should have been applied to all cars.

No, that's exactly the problem with start-stop. You go on the brake, then the car shuts down the motor, now if you go off the brake it starts again. Many people would go park in their garage, the car shuts off, they leave the car, the car drives into the wall.

In order to protect from this habit you need to detect whether the driver is still present. Opening the door is a pretty good indication (normally) that the car shouldn't start again.

Thanks. I am aware of the start-stop mechanism, but didn't know its name, and have never had it in a car I was driving myself, so am less aware of its implications. (I don't drive often anyway.)

He’s referring to the automatic stop feature that a lot of cars have now for fuel economy. The engine will shut off at stoplights and restart when the brake is released.

I know someone that was on QA at a major international horn manufacturer, the minimum activation cycles before failure for India were ~10x-50x higher than for other markets.

Was it German manufacturer? We experieneced lots of Skoda (basically anything of VW group) horn failures in India!

I'm pretty sure pretty much every low/mid range car in India has a custom fit horn that is loud more or less to a train.

It was in fact a German manufacturer, but now VW group.

The honking situation in India genuinely fascinates me (apart from driving me insane). If someone's not experienced it, you won't know what we're talking about. Comparing it to France / other places won't do justice. I compare it to Bats using sonar echo to move while being almost blind (I know this analogy doesn't hold exactly but you know what I mean?).

I have seen bikes in smaller town hoking continuously down a straight empty road - probably because they want to announce they're coming and letting kids / other people know they're coming and you better look out (not to annoy you but out of genuine concern for YOU).

Bigger cities have the same problem amplified. Everyone letting everyone else know that they're around, watch out.

I've lived in other crowded cities in developing nations like Nairobi - it has the same traffic problems but not a single car honking! The entire town stuck in traffic and complete silence! So it is possible, I just don't understand what gave Indian drivers the idea that this helps in their driving.

I have been in Bangalore and I really couldn't understand who is honking to me because everybody honk. It is just chaos.

The safety part does have something to do with it. But more often the horn is used as a stress ball, as if pressing it will somehow get traffic moving faster. There's also this category of bikers who want to speed on empty roads looking all "heroic" who honk away without a care in the world.

I am from Bangalore, and in 2012, I tried an experiment in an auto-rickshaw (tuk-tuk). I offered to pay the driver double the meter price if he didn't honk even once during an upcoming 1 hour-ish ride.

The driver thought I was nuts to offer him this obviously easy money, and accepted it. I told him up front that the first honk, and the extra money was off the table. He said - ok - and we started the ride. The first few kilometers were pleasant, and the driver was cool with it - but as we entered the business district with more traffic, he became more and more frustrated and started to hum and sing to take it out a bit. Then, he kind of started "barking" (for the lack of a better word) at other drivers who irritated him. He then resorted to outright shouting at the drivers. Eventually, something snapped and he honked once. I told him the deal was off, and the rest of my trip was a veritable honk-hell.

I have always believed the stress ball theory after this one-off experiment.

Recently shifted to Bangalore, will try this out !! Haha

HAHAHAHA.. This is absolutely hilarious.

Incessant honking is just another form of mass of mass ignorance.

Whether it is spitting, throwing cigarette butts, stealing any small thing that isn't locked down, or honking, the end result is that everyone's quality of life decreased - even the people doing the bad thing.

The ignorance is that anyone who took just a moment to think through the situation would realize that such actions do not help. But for some reason, large numbers of humans default to low level mental functioning whereby they spend most of their lives operating without rational thought.

It's like the tragedy of the commons:

I honk -> I arrive faster

We all honk -> We all arrive slower

How to change these problem behaviors en masse is still an open problem, as far as I know. The approach taken in the link by the Mumbai police, of introducing a negative feedback mechanism for the behavior, is a psychologically sound approach.

NYC tried for over 30 years, and failed, to use signs to get people to stop honking. Unnecessary honking will still get you a $350 fine, though.

https://www.npr.org/2013/02/12/171837301/new-york-city-ends-...

https://www.silive.com/news/2017/08/350_fine_for_improper_ho...

Signs aren’t sufficient. It needs to be enforced and it isn’t. These tickets are never given out and everyone knows it.

that sounds like an enforcement issue? China did the same in Shanghai in like 2008 and what felt like over night the horns stopped.

I just spent two nights in NYC (first time there; though I do live in a rural area, I'm not new to cities in general).

But man, there was a honk every two seconds down on the street outside my room, only slowing down for an hour or two around 3-4AM. I was floored.

There's an easy solution to this: the horn should be as loud inside the car as it is outside the car.

As someone who walks 99% of the time this is something I have said on numerous occasions. When someone honks at me when I am legally crossing the street with a walk signal the car horn should be just as loud for you as it is for me.

I feel this is a problem in the majority of Indian cities. Perhaps Mumbai stands out here as it has more Traffic hence greater levels of unnecessary honking.

Having worked at Bangalore and Hyderabad, living along/nearby any road with regular traffic lead to poor sleep quality due to sound pollution from senseless honking. Poorly enforced regulations regarding the hours when construction is allowed don't help either.

Add the temple loudspeakers to the list. Also, public defecation and rampant littering. S. Asia has a poor regard for public spaces.

For me the worst impact on sleep came from warring packs of stray dogs.

That never frustrated me as much. Somehow I find the actions of animals more excusable than the rationalizations provided for man made noise pollution.

Tolerating packs of stray fogs is the actions (or perhaps inaction) of men, only manifest as dogs.

If you notice, almost all big trucks have hand painted signs on the back saying "HORN OK PLEASE"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_OK_Please

I strongly believe the nature of a society is best visualized through its traffic sense. Whether it's showing empathy, collaborating, cooperating, patience, discipline, following rules, the anything-will-do attitude, etc.

I'm expecting the sabotaging nature will have a ton of people consciously going out of the way to screw up everyone else.

That's not what I found at all. Traffic is chaotic, but people in general are very cooperative. The cooperation just happens in an ad-hoc way rather than by traffic rules. Yes, there is a lack of discipline, but I don't think any society will behave differently if you put that many people in that small of a space.

> Traffic is chaotic, but people in general are very cooperative

That's self-contradicting. If Traffic is chaotic, then people are either not cooperative or the rules are set but no one is following. If the rules are well architected, enforced and obeyed, then the traffic wouldn't be chaotic.

What GP is saying makes sense to me - traffic sense tells a lot about the society. It exemplifies that developing nations have tough conditions, out of control population, limited resources and stiff competition; if you're a nice guy, you'll lose. I am sure many people in Mumbai would like to cooperate, but they are held back because of the aforementioned trap.

It is not contradicting, Like you yourself said, people being cooperative is not in itself enough for traffic to be not chaotic. You still need well architected rules and enforcement. It is also a function of desperation. If there's enough resources for everyone, it's easier to be nice. When there isn't enough for everyone, or when people feel that there isn't enough, things start to go south pretty quickly.

There's still the concept of "organized chaos" on top of that.

Definitely, I agree.

GP is talking about society, you are talking about individual people.

Individually people can be cooperative, yet as a whole society can be chaotic. Mob mentality and game theory define how a society behaves far more than the observation of individuals would suggest.

Umm, Both Japan and HK have a lot of people in a small space and have 1/100th of the absolute utter mindless chaos that prevails on the roads in Delhi/Mumbai.

I live in Hong Kong and in the more built up areas, people honk their horn as soon as the traffic stops moving. It's not uncommon for me to be woken up by someone holding their horn while a minibus unloads it's passengers which is sometimes a few minutes.

People are often quite apologetic when you call them out but the automatic instinct is definitely to use the horn rather than the brake.

Agree with that, and that is interesting. Replied below to a similar comment. You also have to consider that infrastructure is far less developed in Mumbai, though.

> You also have to consider that infrastructure is far less developed in Mumbai

That is not true atleast in Mumbai, the traffic signals work but lot of drivers dont follow the signal because no one is going to catch them, if they dont obey the lights, if they see a traffic cop most drivers will obey the lights.

Does enforcement count as infrastructure? As discussed, laws/signs without enforcement do little. Is seeing police that rare that everyone would risk it? Accountibility is foremost before progress.

"but I don't think any society will behave differently if you put that many people in that small of a space."

Just the opposite; some cultures have rigid social organisation and deal with such problems, some cultures have little to no social organisation. In the former traffic flows, in the later it does not.

That is an interesting point. Though Mumbai has a much higher population density that HK/Tokyo, those number can be misleading. May be India's diversity also plays a role here. Because I checked the list of cities by pop density, and the once that I think have good traffic flow are the ones that are more uniform. Diverse societies have a harder time making people follow rules. Not sure about traffic, but it sure makes sense in general.

Population density, and growth, are also functions of social organisation :)

Obviously some things are much more difficult to manage than others (i.e. controlling reproduction is probably harder to tweak than traffic flows), but nevertheless - the prevailing conditions are usually an outcome of some collective choice or lack thereof.

Consider the paradox of the 'dirty city': most cities with garbage laying about, also have very high unemployment. We might think 'oh, they have no money to clean it up', but this is upside down, a city with high unemployment has more slack in the labour force than elsewhere. In clean (usually rich) cities, it's often hard to determine where value can be created but in a dirty city, it's obvious - everyone wins if they just clean up, it's an obvious investment, and the labour should be cheap. (Money is a social contract, its fungible, intelligent administrators should be able to find some kind of distribution that works.) So why are they dirty? With so many people not doing a whole lot?

Even by this 'they have no money' logic, poor cities with slack/cheap labour should be much cleaner than rich cities, wherein it soaring wages etc. should make it more difficult to clean up. Rich cities might be dirty as the cost of cleaning with high wages etc. should be way, way more.

But it's the other wary around: high degrees of social organisation create wealth. Many 'resources' (waterworks, social services, cars) are functions of that social order, except natural resources of course, which are obviously important.

Obviously, it's nary impossible to fix 'one social problem' (i.e. garbage or traffic) without really well established social conditioning on a basic level, and of course, some very powerful external forces can prohibit such development (i.e. constantly flooding plains ruin agricultural industry every decade, never allowing it to develop as an economic base, there was a war, famine etc.), but even then - it does not take 'resources' to have safe/clean/moral/lawful organisation (though it can certainly help), nor does it require wealth - in fact, wealth is created by such organisation.

I don't blame the Mumbai police or any single citizen, but collectively they make their own bed on traffic - and most other things.

Yes, it's going to be 'tight' and yes, they are a little 'natural resource poor' but they can get along and make it work if they really want to. And when they get better at that, there's a 100% chance they'll be getting better at everything else as well, and subsequently, a lot richer.

The same applies to the rest of us.

I "partially" disagree. In my view, civic sense has also a lot to do with resources per capita available. Whether it is Black Friday sales in the US or driving on crazy roads in India, people tend to save time and money by resorting to unruly behavior.

This does not line up with my experience.

Where I live the government and the rules it hands down occupies basically the same spot in people's minds that god would occupy in a devout catholic of the middle ages. You would expect based on how everyone lives their lives that we would follow traffic rules to the letter.

We don't. In traffic people (discounting the outliers, after all we're using broad brushes here) think for themselves, are generally assertive and more or less ignore rules and do what they see fit. Stops that would be yields if they had different lanes for left/right are treated like yields when going right. The 50-65 limits on divided highways are more or less ignored and people drive at whatever speeds they deem reasonable. Sometimes that's 65, sometimes that's 85. I'm sure this description is making some people clutch their pearls but for the most part things work great.

So based on my anecdotal experience I'm firmly in the "no correlation" camp.

100% agree If people don't follow the rules, honk, etc they show they don't respect others, not only on the roads.

How people respond to situations when they cannot communicate says a lot. I’m inclined to agree with you.

Also, how people choose to behave knowing their identities are concealed.

This is great in idea but do seems like a gimmick. Do you honestly believe everyone on that road can read your sign posted in English ? I can judge this because I am from Bombay. After few min, crowd will just ignore the traffic light and take off. I really hope this works though ! Its insane how bay the noise pollution is.

No, but I assume most can read the numbers? People are good at seeing patterns.

The countdown timers seem well-established so people know what they are.

The decibel meter is probably something people will figure out quickly (number goes up when noise goes up).

The reset is something people will definitely figure out quickly - bottom number goes over 85, countdown resets.

Are there no fines for ignoring traffic lights? Since this is deployed to only a few traffic lights, seems like handing out a bunch of fines to everyone ignoring the light once or twice should be enough for a sufficient number of drivers to stop ignoring it.

Word of mouth and media coverage like this (which other papers will report in Hindi/Marathi as well) is probably enough to propagate the message to almost everyone within a few weeks. Hoping it works!

An awful lot of people there, especially the more educated, speak English.

Why India loves honking

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-origins-of-horn-ok...

That still doesn't explain why they honk at red lights when no overtaking is going on.

When I spent 3 weeks in Hyderabad in 2008, the red/green lights were completely ignored. As were lane markers and any other attempts at regulating traffic.

It was a complete free-wheeling anarchy. It somehow worked quite well, though I understood why I was given a 24/7 driver. I could maybe have survived driving, but I would probably have killed someone else, by not following the unwritten rules.

It remains one of the most astonishing things I have ever seen!

Because with enough honking, they can get the crowd to ignore the traffic light and start to inch forward anyway.

If the lights start spending 2x longer often, surely that will push people to defy the light itself more than they did before.

Using group punishment to curb individual behaviour is always at risk of undermining group obedience.

I wonder what variables affect most whether the policy will be successful or detrimental.

If they're already so frustrated, some powerful force must be preventing them running red lights. That force is obviously very strong so it probably works on double-frustration pushiness too.

But wait!

I doubt that their "decibel meters" are very directional. So perhaps drivers that currently have the green could honk more, and so force the signal to skip a cycle.

Alternatively, only prolong the red, but allow the green to proceed to yellow at the normal pace. (But then there's no cross-cutting traffic to keep people at the red in place...)

Right, give everyone red, until the noise level drops below some threshold.

But then, people with loud horns could shut down traffic.

And screw themselves in the process... not a net gain unless someone's wanting to share a bad day, I suppose.

Well, some American kids I know would do it for the lulz.

Unless you live around there and want to encourage drivers to take alternate routes.

Does Mumbai allow left-on-red like the US has right-on-red?

People may do this to stop oncoming traffic and get turns faster.

If everyone has red, people will just start running the red light.

We have the same thing in France but to prevent speeding when a light is about to go red.

On some lights, there’s a speed sensor, if a car exceeds the speed limit, it instantly goes from green to yellow then red.

It's actually not that dangerous. Where I am the speed is measured about 200-300 meters from the traffic light. The traffic light changes when you are at a point where you can still slowly come to a stop - you won't be anywhere near a situation where the light changes to yellow as you are about to enter the intersection.

That...sounds dangerous.

I presume the red is unilateral, meaning they don't (immediately) change the other side to green in response.

Even still, much like in India where drivers will learn to ignore the the punishing light, it could be drivers in France will learn that running reds does not increase a chance of collision because it’s only a signal of speed.

Increasing a chance of collision or not is not the same as losing a minute over a traffic light or annoying a few people. It does not appeal to the same emotions, it has a much deeper meaning.

I believe the comparison is flawed.

It only has to increase the chance of getting a really expensive ticket and points on your license to discourage that.

When a light turns yellow, a driver has to make a very quick calculus of a number of factors, including estimating stopping duration and distance, traffic presence, penalties, even judgement from other drivers. Some people will place more weight on one or another of those factors. If there is any significant portion of the population that places weight on "this isn't a real red light; it is only meant as a nagging signal" then it seems that the chances of a miscalculation (and high-speed collision) become greater overall.

The obvious solution would be to combine each nagging signal with a red-light camera, at which point it becomes very "real".

Yeah that makes it a lot safer. But still, what if two cars are approaching the signal and they end up rear ending?

How would it be more dangerous than triggering the transition by a timer?

Because humans anticipate things and this simultaneously changes their intuition about the light they're anticipating after confirming that it's particularly relevant, essentially maximizing the chance the run a red light, or slam on the brakes and get rear-ended.

If it's unpredictable, can I end up being rear ended by someone behind?

perhaps if the sensor is not on the light, but some distance away that would be a lot safer? (I don't know how it has been arranged)

Placed some distance away. Happens also in Spain next to schools or hospitals. Is designed in special casses when humans need to use often a crosswalk, not to manage trafic in a crossroad. It works well.

Sounds overly complex? We just have combined speed-and-red cameras here. So if you go 70 instead of 50 to make the light you're getting a speeding ticket. Still cheaper than a red light ticket, but not by much.

They need better signage that explains the concept, looks like a lot of people were just confused. Perhaps a sign in local language.

Also, wouldn't this cause issues with the general flow of the traffic? One delay and you have cascading effects that perturbe macroscopic traffic patterns at the city level.

This type of punishment would be detrimental in well coordinated traffic (probably not Mumbai): Study of traffic is an entire field in scientific research, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_simulation

It's mostly a one-off exercise (to teach people a lesson), they most probably don't plan to continue doing it.

I think it's because of the cows! In India, the cows roam around freely, and if you have ever been on the road with a cow in front of you, it does not give a shit and will basically just stand there, eventually move when it feels like it. The obvious action to alert something/someone hindering you is to use the horn, "you are in my way", but that does not work for cows that well.

Over time, this weird culture developed of honking. Often honking in reply to each other, like a rhythm almost.

Was initially thinking this would be easy to troll, but then there's good old fashioned mob justice.

Maybe there'll be an uptick in the number of handheld air horns sold... eg. A pedestrian sees the lights about to change NOT in their favour: honk, and then they've got time to cross.