A Delhi woman visiting Bali has sparked a conversation about civic sense after comparing the Indonesian tourist hotspot’s traffic behaviour with that of the Indian capital. Despite bumper-to-bumper traffic and what she described as infrastructure similar to, or even worse than, Delhi’s, she was struck by the absence of unnecessary honking and the discipline shown by motorists.
“Right now, I am in the main market of Bali, and I’ll show you one thing. Look over there. You can see it, right? From front to back, it’s just traffic, traffic, and more traffic, okay? And on this side, half the road is taken up by scooties for scooty parking. But scooties go from the left side, and bigger vehicles go from the right side.
It never happens that the drivers on the right side cut into the left,” she said.
Sareen argued that civic behaviour could not always be attributed to government intervention. “Now, the government didn’t come and whisper all these things into their ears, right? People here follow all of this on their own. She also claimed that Bali’s infrastructure was not significantly better than Delhi’s. “And let me tell you, the infrastructure here isn’t remarkably better than Delhi’s. In fact, I’d say that in many places here, the construction is worse than in Delhi. Yet the people… and what do we do? We blame the government within a second. Drawing a comparison with Delhi’s busy markets, she added, “Now imagine if this kind of traffic happened in our Delhi. There would be so much honking that even walking around the market would become impossible. I know, I live in Delhi. In the markets of Tilak Nagar and Rajouri Garden, people keep honking constantly. What can the government do about that?
A third user said, “Discipline matters more than infrastructure. Echoing the woman’s observation about traffic noise, another added, “The no-honking part is impressive.”
