The Impatience Epidemic underlying India’s Traffic Chaos
India’s notorious traffic problems have two facets. There is on the one hand the problem of poor infrastructure or enforcement. And then there is a fundamental behavioural pattern: widespread impatience. Both feed into each other. This cultural tendency manifests daily on streets across the country, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that makes travel inefficient, dangerous, and frustrating for everyone involved.
Consider a typical intersection in Bangalore, where vehicles edge forward aggressively before lights change, motorcycles weave through impossibly tight spaces, and pedestrians dart between moving vehicles. These aren’t merely symptoms of congestion but reflections of a collective unwillingness to wait one’s turn. The concept of yielding - whether to pedestrians at crosswalks or to vehicles with right-of-way - often seems foreign in the Indian traffic landscape.
What I postulate is that India’s problem of lack of traffic sense emanates from a general lack of patience amongst the people. Patience to let others go first. Patience to give pedestrians the right of way. Everybody wants to be the first to go.
The almost alien idea of accessible public transportation illustrates this challenge perfectly. Can we even imagine a bus driver stopping to deploy a wheelchair ramp for a disabled passenger? In many countries, this brief delay would be accepted without complaint. In Indian cities, however, it would likely trigger a symphony of honking and attempts to overtake, even in dedicated bus lanes. Don’t we see the same pattern with metro trains, where passengers routinely push to enter before others can exit, creating needless congestion and delay?
The origins of this behavior pattern may be complex and multifaceted. One could point to hierarchical social structures like the historical caste system, which embedded notions of different levels of entitlement deeply into cultural consciousness. When society implicitly suggests some people deserve to go first, “me before we” thinking becomes normalised. Our social systems have made waiting one’s turn feel like losing status rather than participating in civic order.
Resource scarcity likely compounds the problem. When buses run infrequently or seats are limited, being second rather than first might mean arriving late to work or standing for an hour-long commute. Some reports reveal that in Bangalore, bus frequencies on popular routes averaged 15 minutes during peak hours - a waiting time many workers simply cannot afford. Under such constraints, aggressive behavior becomes a rational, if counterproductive, adaptation.
Perhaps most interesting is the chicken-and-egg relationship between systemic failures and impatient behavior. People lack patience because their patience is tested daily. Citizens face multiple daily efficiency hurdles: poorly timed signals that create unnecessary waits, construction zones without proper alternative routes, and illogically placed transit stops. On the roads, there are delays at multiple points, multiple blockages - potholes that impede speed of travel, unscientifically placed and designed speedbreakers, wrongly placed bus stops which force buses to deboard on one side of the road only to have to take the exact opposite side turn. When the system repeatedly wastes your time, you naturally look for ways to “make up” lost minutes by cutting corners elsewhere - creating a vicious cycle where impatience becomes both cause and effect. Do you wait for perennially delayed buses, or do you take your private vehicle and break rules to reach your destination on time?
Breaking this cycle requires coordinated approaches addressing both infrastructure and behaviour. Cities that have improved traffic flow through scientific road design and increased public transport frequency report significant decreases in rule-breaking behavior. When citizens trust that following rules won’t unreasonably delay them, their patience naturally improves. The solution to India’s traffic chaos may ultimately lie not just in better roads or stricter enforcement, but in rebuilding social trust through systems that respect everyone’s time equally.
And it doesn’t need rocket science. Simply maintain the existing roads, if one can’t do improved design of roads. Construct more roads, and then maintain them. Even if one assumes that our authorities are capable of doing only poor quality road relaying work which flows away at the next downpour, keep doing it whenever there are potholes. If not the quality of work, solve the problem by working on the frequency of road maintenance work. Have the ward offices do this work at least. Please do away with AI-based traffic signals if one cannot implement them well. Simple, time-based signals will work too. Don’t tinker around too much if one doesn’t have the required capability. Reliability trumps sophistication. Basic timing adjustments based on morning and evening peak periods, even without complex algorithms, can create predictable traffic patterns that drivers learn to navigate efficiently. Build capability or acknowledge the lack of capability, so that our cities don’t perish under any grand delusions.
Clear lane markings represent an overlooked, low-cost improvement that can have outsized impact. Simply repaint faded lane markings. This can increase lane discipline and reduce merging conflicts. When drivers can clearly see where they should position their vehicles, much of the chaotic jockeying for position naturally diminishes. Intersection box marking (“don’t block the box” campaigns) offers a straightforward solution to gridlock. Painting visible boxes at key intersections with clear signage reminding drivers not to enter unless they can clear the intersection could prevent the typical locked-grid situation during peak hours.
Local traffic wardens drawn from community volunteers represent another resource-light solution. Without enforcement power but with official visibility vests, these volunteers can improve pedestrian crossing compliance.
The common thread among these solutions is pragmatism over perfection. Rather than waiting for ideal implementation of ambitious plans, accepting “good enough” solutions applied consistently can yield substantial improvements. One can hope this solves the impatience epidemic problem that Indian cities face.