Traffic Trance

“Where have you been? Long time!” said five of the six chat-windows on my computer, when I signed in today.

I have been mobile since a month doing some exciting projects for this new client-company. But unlike my smooth pace ‘at’ work, my pace ‘to’ work is apparently 3 miles per hour! And I drive. A good new Toyota Yarris. (Thanks to rental-car-services in the city, I get to have a choice!)

May be driving one of those Flintstone cartoon cars would be more fun instead, I think. Feet breathing freely underneath the car frame. No engine no noise and a good workout indeed. Weights and running. Or to add any practicality to this animated thought; walking. Weights and walking. Aha! Good deal in returns to the time consumed!

Driving is an intention/invention to get us humans onto a faster medium, transferring us from one place to another. To use our travel time in a best possible activity instead.

Drive, means force/ steer/make happen.

Both of these psychosomatically speaking are acts of liberation. Allowing us to free ourselves from a location, a moment, a situation, a thought etc.

“Let’s go for a drive!”

Driving is associated with relaxing, de-stressing, releasing and a happy flying feeling. In simple words, drive or driving adds ‘movement’ to anything that is ‘stagnant’.

Movement.

The very same means of liberation can sometimes leave us feeling overpoweringly sluggish when this movement is interrupted more than often, more than normally.

Traffic congestion.

In UAE (especially Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman), a person on an average spends 3 hrs in traffic jam everyday. Hence, going for a drive would may never mean as a liberating act in this part of the world (unless off road of course). It surely would sound more like a dark joke followed by a few cynical smiles.

Traffic trance.

Just imagine - A life; born to win is bestowed with a healthy up-bringing, education, with aspirations of his/her loved ones. A learned life with x number of degrees, driven with ambitions, is driving 3-4 hours everyday to his/her work place. Can I call it torment for labor on a much “sophisticated” level this time?

Are we bending too much to an extent of going unnoticed?

While the traffic-congestion voluntarily continues to become part of our understandings, almost as reasonable as drinking or eating; I would like to share some facts for us to 'revise' or 're-consider'.

x x x

Negative effects of traffic congestion on daily bases: click here to read more

Waste of time....
>Causing us ‘opportunity cost’ which means the value of the benefits forgone of some other thing which might have been done instead.

>Delays, which may result in late arrival for employment, meetings, and education, resulting in lost business, disciplinary action or other personal losses.

>Inability to forecast travel time accurately, leading to drivers allocating more time to travel "just in case", and less time on productive activities.

Waste of fuel....
>Caused by alternative use of acceleration air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions contributing to global warming.

>Wear and tear on vehicles as a result of idling in traffic and frequent acceleration and braking, leading to more frequent repairs and replacements.

Waste of mind.... which is one of the most hazardous ones:...
>A non-productive activity for most of the minds than driving in jams, reducing region’s economic health.

>Stress frustration due to inability to forecast travel time, causing road rage, health problems with motorists and passengers.

>Emergencies: blocked traffic may interfere with the passage of emergency vehicles traveling to their destinations where they are urgently needed.

Hope we keep taking good care of ourselves and others, to collectively ease unnecessary elements like traffic jams by using our roles and reach to fullest; to ultimately bring peace ( literally!) within and around.

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