Social norms around motor transport have been hiding a major public health hazard, an unsung carnage that is already killed more people than wars and diseases put together in past century, but an antidote is emerging in the form of MaaS Movement – a bold and comprehensive initiative that integrates Mobility-As-A-Service with LACE-Gaia model – for localized abundance and circular economy and grassroots to global governance
Eighteen people die every hour
On the Indian roads
Lives lost and families traumatized
Year after year
For several decades
So long that we think it is ‘normal’.
How could be so numb
To this carnage of our own creation
Why do we act like zombies
Instead of finding a lasting solution.
The reasons, though shocking
Are no longer a secret
Psychologists have diagnosed this as a disorder
In the closets of the human mind
Our unconscious bias towards motoring
Of the Carbrain virus that sits behind.
Because we love our motorcars
More than the lives we lose
The families that are traumatised
The millions of hours lost
In the grueling traffic jams
With the ‘ghost’ on the empty seat next to us
We are not stuck in the traffic jam
‘We are the traffic jam’
That we fail to see.
We fail to see the Air Pollution
Climbing to unsafe and hazardous levels
Choking our lungs and burning in our eyes
Coming from the tailpipes
Exacerbated by the traffic jams and the longer trips
From the suburbs of affordable housing and ornamental parks
We see the ‘padaali’ smoke from far away farms
But can’t look right below our nose
The nauseating smoke from the motorcars we love
With no ‘Statutory Warnings’ like on cigarette packs.
Lo behold, the solution is here
A MaaS Movement sweeping across the globe
Mobility-as-a-service not just owning a ‘box with wheels’
Is the way to beat the traffic blues,
For safe roads and clean air of naturally fragrant hues.
‘App-based micromobility’ is where we begin
With ‘5km micromobility mandate’ we take away the sting
From the traffic jams caused by short trips
On solo driven cars.
The air begins to clean up
More people flock to e-rickshaws and bicycles
As roads become considerably safer
With stringent traffic rules enforcement
And drones watching from the sky
Data-driven and demand-responsive measures
Create comfort and convenience for higher pleasures.
Life is too precious
To be wasted in road accidents
While away in grueling traffic jams
Lost amidst obnoxious and nauseating air pollution
Micromobility is just the tip of the iceberg
As MaaS Movement gathers worldwide momentum
There is lots more to come
It is not even that we win and lose some
It is about an Orbit-Shifting innovation
About the ultimate win-win solution.
The antidote to the ‘Carbrain Virus’
For the sanity of our minds to prevail
Where the secrets lie
For safe, fast and clean roads.
– Chandra Vikash
Wed 28 June 2023
PS: “The conventional narrative presents the modern automobile and its internal combustion engine as inevitable. the car culture we now take for granted, both in the US and around the world, came into being only after a huge struggle by the auto industry, not just against other less destructive transport options but also against the environmental consciousness of ordinary people.
In 1902, one US motoring journal explained that, “in Europe, it is openly recognized that the main excuse for the speed mania is the desire to feel new sensations and juggle away the emptiness of a purposeless life.”
GAIA - Global Academy of Indigenous Activism 