He was unconvinced by my plea that many SOS boxes in emergencies erected on highways to help hapless victims - need not be only truck drivers, but anyone like you and I - are just empty boxes. There may be nothing inside.
"Are you saying, these companies that have won multi-crore contracts to build, operate and transfer (BOT) will be stingy enough to save a few thousand rupees by bluffing the general public and putting up empty SOS (Save Our Soul) boxes on highways?" asked Ulhas.
I re-requested: What's your problem? Why can't you just get out of the car and check out? Proof of the pudding is in the eating. Reluctantly, Ulhas stepped out on the Poona-Solapur Expressway and bingo! - this SOS box turned out to be an empty one. Nothing inside. He was aghast.
"Hey, what the hell is this? Nothing inside!" he shouted while our driver Nitin and I laughed out loud from inside the Innova, we were riding on a road trip from Nagpur to Pune covering a distance of 700 km via Latur over three days. His ire and outburst did not surprise me. I am used to such displays of indifference by fellow Indians.
Road safety? Haha! "Tata company? Such lapses?" - once again this Puneikar screamed. In anger or glee, I could not figure out. "How did you guess this is one is empty?" Ulhas demanded.
There are no answers. But this is not the first time, I had halted on highways and checked out across India over the past five years - since 2010- during my sojourn in trucks on Indian highways - such supposed to be emergency boxes erected on highways to assist the aam janata plying these expressways/tollways.
No, I do not halt every single such Emergency Assistance boxes, but randomly step out to pick up phones and check whether such phones really exist and if so, do they actually work and if so, does someone at the other end respond quickly. "Don't the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) giving out such contracts conduct period checks?" asked my fellow traveler.
They do. Am sure they also come across such blunders. Before one jumps to conclusions, let it be said that concessionaires do not check the operability of these emergency kits regularly. That's the crux.
Once on such a mission, plying on the National Highway 44 (Hyderabad to Bangaluru) in 2011 I got out and found the box working fine and the response at the control room was quick. The operator quickly alerted the emergency team on wheels which reached me in double-quick time. It was much before sunrise and it was still dark. When they understood my motive in calling, they were perplexed.
I was taken a tour of their control room facilities and treated to a hot cuppa. Returning to the 'Ulhas' episode, we decided to confront the plaza manager of Pune-Solapur Expressway and drove to his office. The man in charge, who joined hardly a week before, called in the systems and maintenance officer to check the veracity of our complaint.
Yes, they knew the SOS box pointed out by Ulhas indeed was empty due to theft by some unknown elements and such non-functional emergency boxes do exist across tollways due to a variety of reasons. We were promised that this would be set right as early as possible.
"Did you check out the other ones before you hit this one?" asked the maintenance official politely. Yes, we did and shared that they were functional. He flashed a 2000 watt smile, convinced that he was doing his duty.
We halted, Kubera stepped out and opened the yellow SOS box mounted on a pole on the roadside. He did find a couple of colored buttons with instructions written on how to use them. When he tried calling, there was no response. I was watching from a distance.
"Maybe, I am hard on hearing. Possibly someone is talking, but I can't hear. Sir, why don't you come and try?" Kubera requested.
I walked up to the SOS box. Pressed the relevant key for the control room. For a few seconds, the buzz went on and on. Then it switched to a pre-recorded voice message. I disconnected and tried again. None picked up the phone at the Control Room of Ashoka, the concessionaire. Next, I tried the Emergency Ambulance button. No response again.
This kind of experience is nothing new. Am sure there are hundreds of such Expressway SOS Emergency phones are just empty boxes or they are not being attended to. But who is going to monitor and ensure they are attended to? The government? NHAI? They have to, but will they? I doubt.
I was not in any emergency seeking their assistance either on the Pune Solapur Expressway, managed by the Tata group, or on the National Highway 4, manned by Ashoka.
What if, I was needing quick assistance and this was the status of such emergency boxes? I leave it there.
So, we drove with the bearded Badami and Charoti Naka-based road safety activist Harbans Singh for a spot inspection. He was shocked on verifying the non-functionality of these boxes. "Incredible. How can the authorities allow such things?" he blurted out. Singh, whose late father used to provide emergency crane services for decades on the Mumbai-Surat stretch before the Golden Quadrilateral became a reality, rebutted the argument that there is no need for these emergency boxes "because everyone carries mobile phones. Really? Try your mobile phone in this stretch. There will be no signal. So, no mobile network, and these emergency boxes don't work. You're in a soup." Messy affair.
Road safety is attracting a lot of attention of late. Let's move beyond just legislating. What India needs - in any sphere - is an actionable plan. Not empty postings on Facebook or any social media but a hardcore focused and dedicated approach to ensure that lives are indeed precious - drivers and passengers - and such valuable resources are well taken care of. The annual ritual of the nationwide social drama of "Road Safety Week or Fortnight or Month" is just that. Seminars, workshops, webinars cannot replace genuine ground-level work.
Further down on the same highway towards Pune, Kubera asked: "Sir, there is another box. Can we try?" I smiled and requested him not to halt and check. What if..... you know the rest!
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