Run. Don't walk

"We have been asked to walk on the pavement, but where is the pavement?!"

Here's something more to worry about.

A recent survey has discovered that this city is practically a non-starter in the pedestrian safety department.

How dreadful is that?!

Chennai has done poorly on all counts – grade crossing, walk-ability, crossing safety...

As for average motorist behaviour?

In a word – pits, apparently.

What's worse, no pavements.

Those that exist are hidden cunningly beneath and behind encroachments, land grabbing garbage and garbage bins, informal shopping areas, wires, holes, uneven slabs, and something that looks like rainwater...you don't even want to think of the alternative.

Most pavements do not seem to factor in people in general, let alone the elderly, small children, and the wheelchair-bound.

Some have become little gardens – very pretty, adding that much-needed touch of precious green – but they do push walkers into the road even more, right?

And you cannot get two more mutually opposing concepts than 'Pedestrian Unfriendly' and 'Chennai's Fitness Freaks'.

Statistics, in the habit of presenting horrific facts in the blandest manner possible, give you the number of pedestrians who died simply because of a lack of safe pavements.

And you ask: How many deaths will it take till they know that too many people have died?

Sadly, the answer is blowing in the wind...