It appears that drivers in Mumbai, India decided that if they all honked their horns the traffic signals changed to green faster. The resulting cacaphony results in sore eardrums, increased heart rate, added stress and contributes to traffic chaos. Something had to be done to preserve health and sanity.
The Mumbai police came up with what is known as the Punishing Signal. Honk loudly enough (more than 85 dB) and the red phase timing starts over again without a green phase in between. There is talk of extending the You Honk, You Wait system to other parts of the country.
This is collective punishment, a misuse of traffic control devices and vindictive policing. It will lead to undesirable public interactions - assaults, property damage, traffic control disobedience and puts police into disrepute. Draconian measures breed draconian society. Civil servants in the position of power must use soft touch and preventitive approach; thinking on behalf of the citizens to provide mitigated frictionless infrastructure. Coming up and instituting additional friction points onto lawabiding members of society runs contrary to what a civil servants ultimate goal should be. Fire every single one of the civil servants invovled in this ill conceived plan, do it immediately, do it fast. And quickly discard any civil servant that does not know their place - below and subservient to its employers - the society.
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Your points are understood, but you forget that part of the police force's duty is to maintain public order, and this includes the enforcement of laws that improve the situation for everybody.
If these drivers want to behave like little children, then why not treat them like little children? I don't think these new noise laws have done anything but good, viewed objectively.
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People won't be able to run at pools, people won't loiter, won't crowd subways or supermarkets. They will think twice about going mobile, because they will be chained to a 100 kg ball.
Throwing baby out with the bath water comes to mind.
Why is the "noise pollution" such a big problem to warrant using draconian collective punishment to begin with? I think using draconian methods to mitigate mundane "problems" is a much greater concern. And would the proposed solution have any realistic chance to even fix the situation? To me it seems quite the opposite - people honk because they are not in motion - anything that prevents or delays the motion therefore exacerbates the problem.
Seems to me that the people there are honking because they are weary of the Government's heavy handed narcissistic measures that run contrary to the problems they are supposed to be fixing and honking their horns is their only means of expressing their frustrations and boredom. Putting socks in the mouths of complainers certainly shuts up the voices, but doesn't address the concern.
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At least they are trying something to stop the unnecessary honking that has absolutely no purpose. Treat children like children and maybe they will learn, eventually.
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That system won't last too long, I reckon. Not because of it's inappropriateness, but because the drivers will learn pretty quickly. The old negative reinforcement approach. Something like "Shut up", he explained.
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Somebody honks, we all wait