Road safety, one starfish at a time.

By SHANTANU PAKNIKAR

A loud honk, a screeching of brakes, and a sudden sideways movement and jerk to the vehicle jolted me out of my reverie. I was on my way to office in the morning. My cab had narrowly avoided a two-wheeler who had suddenly cut across the road in front of us. Muttering curses to the rider who was anyway out of earshot by now, my driver resumed his phone conversation on his hands free. And I resumed my thoughts on the story of the little child throwing starfish back into the sea. You might have heard that story before? My favourite version is that of a little girl who is picking up starfish washed up on the shore and is throwing them back into the sea one by one to save their lives. A grown up passing by observes this and says “Sweetheart, there are thousands of starfish here, how could you possibly make a difference?”. To which she picks up another one, throws it back into the water, looks up at him with a determined expression, and says “Made a difference to that one.” Depending on which version you are familiar with, the grown-up might (or might not) have joined her, with others following.

Looking at the chaotic traffic around me and looking at my cab driver chattering away on his hands free while driving, I remembered why I had been thinking of that story. I had given up speaking on the phone while driving a couple of years earlier. Of late, I had given up driving to office and started commuting to and from my office primarily by cab. I couldn’t help noticing that most of the cab drivers appeared to have the same addiction that so many drivers do (me included at one point in time): non-stop phone conversations while driving. I remember requesting them, during the initial days that I started commuting by cab regularly, not to speak on the phone while driving. In some cases, it worked, and the driver graciously agreed to my request and put away the phone. In some other cases, I got the response “I am using a hands-free, so what’s the problem?”. And in a few cases, the driver got aggressive and suggested that I could step out of the car if I had a problem. I began to ask myself, “Why am I wasting my time? Forget cab drivers, every second driver these days speaks on the phone while driving, including most of my friends. Can I, alone, really make a difference?” And that was when the little girl of my imagination, picked up another starfish, threw it into the water, smiled at me, and said the same thing again: “Made a difference to that one too!”

I saw the way now. At the end of the ride, my mobile app asked me to rate the driver. I selected three stars, upon which the app asked me to select a reason from a list. Not surprisingly, my reason (driver speaking on phone) was not listed. I selected “My reason is not listed” and in “Leave a comment” I typed out “Driver speaking on phone while driving”. I tapped on “Submit” and thought “One starfish back in the sea.”

That evening, I took a cab from a different provider back home. Different provider, different driver, same incessant phone conversations. Again, the app asked for a rating and this time I selected four stars. In “What could be improved?”, again as expected there was no specific option, so I selected “Other” and told myself “Another starfish”.

I also realized that driver ratings were likely to affect whether they got to continue being on the cab aggregator platforms or not. Therefore, to be fair, over the next few days, whenever a driver did not use the phone while driving, I made it a point both to compliment him verbally for not speaking on the phone while driving and also give him the highest rating. In one app, I started choosing 5 stars and when prompted for a compliment, I chose “6-star service” and left a compliment “6 stars for not speaking on phone while driving”. In the other app, I started choosing 5 stars and in “What went perfect for you” I started choosing “My reason is not listed” and in “Leave a comment”, started typing the text “5 stars for not speaking on phone while driving”.

And so, the months have passed. Each time when I have wondered, “What’s the use of providing the feedback? None of the companies are going to bother to listen or act on it”, the starfish story has kept me going.

And last Friday morning, after a ride when I tapped out four stars on my app for the driver rating, I got a pleasant surprise: In “Why wasn’t this a great ride”, I saw an update to the default options with a new entry. “Using phone while driving” was now listed as one of the reasons for this not being a great ride! I selected that, tapped on “Submit” and congratulated myself.

“Looks like I made a difference,” said a voice in my head, the voice of hope.

But the voice of doubt was nearby as well. This one whispered, “Cut out the self-congratulations, Mr. Wise Guy. Remember the news article last month which said that the government has introduced heavy penalties for speaking on the phone while driving? The change is due to that and has nothing to do with your feedback.”

I thought to myself, how would the little girl have reacted? This time, I was the grown up in the story. I visualized myself on the seashore, chatting with her and explaining the situation. And she looked down at the starfish in her little hands, thought for a moment, threw the starfish in, smiled and looked straight at me with bright, sparkling eyes. “So long as the starfish live, does it really matter who threw them in? C’mon, help me and let’s keep going.”