Motorists, manners and modernization

In the not too distant past in this country, vehicles descending steep inclines would stop and give way for those coming up - the reasoning being that the latter needed all their power and might lose momentum if forced to slow down.

The driver of the ascendant vehicle would thank the driver of the stopped one with a double hoot on his horn, which would be responded to by a single long blast. Such were the courtesies of the democratic chivalry of the road, the drivers of cars, vans, buses, lorries and tractors.

Today, alas, such etiquette appears to have died out in road behaviour. On the road to Kandy on Saturday, this writer narrowly escaped being driven off the road by a private bus which came careening down the left side of the road, in the face of oncoming traffic; to be nearly killed half an hour later by a government bus which decided to overtake, likewise oblivious to oncoming traffic.

Highway Code

Apart from the bus drivers in these particular incidents being in glorious breach of the Highway Code, they were ill-mannered louts, their actions declaring to the world in full-lunged shouts that they simply did not care for the well-being of the other drivers:

Road accidents, a heavy burden on economy

There is a phrase which describes this approach: ‘I’m alright Jack’, which is defined in the Urban Dictionary as an ‘attitude of "every man for himself, survival of the fittest, devil take the hindmost ... but also, that all the possible advantages (however gained), success (however won) and satisfaction (whatever the cost to others) belong to me first!" Narrow-focus, narrow-gauge pseudo-Darwinian selfishness glorified as a sensible philosophy of society and life.’

One can observe this attitude in the (often young) drivers of large, showy four-wheel drive vehicles, who drive with their headlights on in broad daylight (and often their fog lamps as well), breaching the Highway Code with impunity and effectively screaming out ‘look at me, I’m important. Get out of my way’. Unfortunately, it is not just our drivers who have this outlook on life. It has become symptomatic of the ills of our society under the twin loads of war (thankfully, now over) and modern market capitalism.

Newly-industrialised countries

The transformation that has taken place in our social mores becomes apparent to any motorist whose vehicle breaks down or who has a puncture. In the old days, people would swarm out of nowhere, offering advice, pushing the vehicle and replacing the tyre. Nowadays, even pleas for help are ignored.

With the waning of the old certainties, the traditional cultures and the semi-feudal mores which glued our society and polity together, people are often without a guide as to how to behave, and often look to their equally bewildered peers for hints.

In our giant neighbour, India, we see the 300-million strong new middle class taking their cues from the brashly self-confident upper classes. Mukesh Ambani’s 27-storey tasteless and (literally) flashy excrescence of a house in Mumbai broadcasts to the world his ‘don’t care’ attitude, which is lapped up by millions of yuppie wannabes. It sets the tone for self-centred behaviour.

The old Sri Lankan upper class had its many, many faults, but ostentation was not one of them. However, it looks like the nouveaux riches are following in the footsteps of their far richer Indian counterparts. Ostentation is combined with a lack of consideration for fellow beings and this conduct is transmitted down across the class barriers as desirable behaviour.

Across a swathe of newly-industrialised countries, one sees a similar phenomenon of unbridled self-centredness. Traffic behaviour is a clear indicator of the breakdown of civilised mores - the anonymity of drivers is an incentive to give vent to inner strains. Many traffic jams are caused by anti-social driver actions - getting ahead having pushed all other considerations aside.

In Britain, the Thatcherite regression, which dismantled the Welfare State, celebrated selfishness. Its result, in a society in which ‘unfair’ had the power of an insult, was a decline in consideration for others and an increase in loutish behaviour. This is the ‘unseen hand’ of Adam Smith. Unfortunately, modern society can no longer tolerate or even afford selfishness as a driving force of development - after all it was unbridled selfishness (and greed) that led to the current world economic crisis.

One newly-industrialised country which recognised this early was Singapore. One of the reasons why Singapore functions as smoothly as it does is the way in which it has tempered the selfishness engendered by its economic system with imbuing the populace with an ideology of the common good. A conscious effort was made to balance the disrupting, self-centring forces of the unrestrained market with strong measures to bind society together.

Traditional Confucian values were stressed, which rang a chord with the majority Chinese community. Confucianism emphasises courtesy, selfless behaviour and the good of society as a whole.

This was supplemented by regular propaganda campaigns aimed at making Singaporeans, who were not known for their politeness, more appreciative of good manners.

A Bus Safety and Courtesy Campaign in 1968 was followed by National Safety First Council Road Courtesy Campaigns in the 1970s. The National Courtesy Campaign was launched in 1979 and was followed by annual campaigns. The government already stresses traditional values, but it needs to shift its emphasis away from the purely religious aspects to our (now moribund) culture of social responsibility.

We need propaganda campaigns, not merely to promote courtesy but also consideration for others. Obviously, the ostentatiously rich need to be told to take down their flash a notch or two; it is all part of the same equation.

Iconic to such campaigns could be the powerful example of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a polite and fairly simple person, who is at the same time looked up to by most of the population.