Walking blues

From Boston to Bombay and Toronto to Timbuktu – pedestrian rights are being trampled upon with impunity, and unfortunately, Dubai joins that league too.

The sedentary lives we lead because we have a tendency to hop into our cars to get from place A to place B even though it may be just to the corner store, have left us bemoaning obesity, diabetes and other related diseases. Yet, the one possible panacea – a brisk walk – is getting to be impossible.

Yes, if we have the luxury of time, it’s quite possible to drive to any of the green havens around the city for a brisk or a leisurely walk. However, if like me, you’ve jumped on the 24/7 work culture bandwagon, then you have got to find your exercise as a pedestrian doing your shopping, paying your bills or just simply going to the corner shop to get a carton of milk or the nearby pharmacy for some Panadol. Simple? Not in my experience.

Walking on many of our streets has become an illegitimate mode of transportation as more and more pedestrians are becoming transpa-rent to speed – plagued road hogs.

Pedestrians trying to cross a street at a Zebra crossing – a perfectly legal thing to do – are permanently threatened by motorists who refuse to stop because they are in an interminable hurry and simply don’t care. To be fair, it’s also very irritating when a pedestrian runs off in front of your car because he/she is in a hurry, but so what?

For those of us who learned to drive properly, was not an unwritten rule – "the pedestrian unconditionally comes before the car" – etched into our brains?

And yet, no one spares a thought to the sanctity of human life. A quick search on the worldwide web will give you 181,000 entries on "Pedestrians Plight". This just means that disrespect to the person who chooses to walk is a universal problem.

The world spends billions on transport infrastructure, billions more on automobile manufacturing and advertising. So how about a couple of million for good old-fashioned feet that can keep walking unhindered and unthreatened and keep our bodies and our environments healthy?