Rocking in the Free World

While it is ingrained within our moral fibre to play the role of the good samaritan in case one notices people in distress, especially when they have been part of a grevious accident and require emergency medical treatment, I am facing a serious moral dilemma with regard to how one should approach the situation when rule-breakers are subject to such mishaps.

Let me illustrate this with a particular example that I was witness to the other day. This took place on a weekday morning at a busy traffic intersection on the ring road in Bangalore, when some buffoon chose to use his helmet to protect his left elbow instead of protecting his head.

Combined with the almost-reverential protection given to his elbow was the fact that he didn’t know enough math to discern that he was speeding at a place where he should’ve ideally breaked and waited for the red light to turn green.

Hence our man, let’s call him Raju, was guilty of two offences – jumping a red light and protecting his left elbow instead of his head with a helmet. What happened when he chose to move instead of wait is something that was predictable. He rammed into someone who was travelling in the purpendicular direction and hurt his hand, because the helmet got in the way.

I saw the whole thing happen, and I couldn’t help but grin at the fact that Raju was being a dumbass who deserved what he got. I don’t think it is bad Karma to laugh at someone who is being an idiot and breaking the rules. I’d consider it to be priceless entertainment instead and I must say that I look forward to many such instances in the future.

Te same applies for all the morons who travel the wrong way in a one way to save a few paise, instead of going further ahead along the road and taking a U-turn to get to their destination. Skimpy and I once had a discussion and he pointed out the following logic to me made a pertinent observation, which I wish was something that people could come up with intuitively instead of putting themselves through such peril.

Assume that you save 10 paise petrol while going the wrong way, and that you face a 1% risk of injuring yourself. Consequently, the value of your life is INR 10. If these people have such a small value for their life, should those that don’t break the rules bother much about them?

The traffic rule breakers in Bangalore should have their own section in the Darwin Awards, so that they can go ahead, and literally knock themselves out. For good.