Where the Heck is your Common Sense?!

I encountered a really bad moment today afternoon, as I went out with my family to have lunch. There is this small Indian temple near my house, where the devotees were celebrating the temple's annual festival today as well. I am okay with the festive mood and atmosphere that comes together with these kind of festivals. But what I hated the most when it comes to today's festival, was the way the devotees parked their cars along the road.

As you can see from the photos, the road is just a normal two lane road, but with cars parked on both road shoulders, the road is now reduced to only one lane. How in the world is a single lane road going to cater for traffic flow on either sides? To make matters worse, there were no RELA members around to control traffic flow along the road.

As proper citizens, we should first and foremost think about the implications of our actions on other people. No one is against them celebrating their festival, as it is their right to do so according to the Constitution. But what makes things look ugly is the lack of civic mindedness and common sense of those people involved, whereby in this occasion, the devotees. There is ample of parking space at the nearby Tamil school, which is less then 20 metres from the temple, but it was hardly used, if not at the nearby community field. I don't get it, why do the devotees have to park so closely to the temple? Can't they just park at the school's parking lot or the field and walk a mere 20 metres to the temple?

The temple authorities also failed to enlist the help of RELA members to coordinate the traffic flow along the road, despite knowing that traffic would be bad on this day due to the congregation of devotees. Isn't that clearly a failure to utilize their common sense? What if someone using the road was in a hurry? What if an ambulance were to use the road? This issues are supposed to be thought about when such events are carried out.

  So, guys, if you carry out any such events or be a part of it, please, 4 everyone's sake, be civic minded so that your activity does not bother anyone else. Think always, what are the implications of your plans onto others. Don't do what you would not want others to do to you.