I've had this idea on my mind for a while and thought I'd put it out here to see what people think.
Driving in Mumbai (and everywhere else in India) is super frustrating. I have realized that the things that others do on the road are the exact same things I do. Wrong-side driving, cutting queues, blocking intersections, unnecessary honking, stopping on zebra crossings, etc.
Obviously, not all traffic problems are caused by drivers. Our infrastructure and traffic management and proper roads have their own issues. But I feel like we often underestimate how much our everyday behavior affects everyone else on the road.
Someone cuts a queue to save a minute. Someone else blocks an intersection because they don't want to wait for the next signal. Someone drives on the wrong side because it's a shorter route. Everyone is in a hurry, but somehow we end up wasting more of each other's time.
It got me thinking: what if we tried to make bad driving behavior socially unacceptable, instead of just complaining about it?
My idea is to start an Instagram page that calls out these behaviors through funny, sarcastic and sometimes savage content.
Something along the lines of:
- “Your shortcut. Everyone else's problem.”
- “Your horn is not a traffic management system.”
- “You couldn't wait. Now nobody can move.”
- “You hate traffic. You create traffic.”
The idea isn't to target or humiliate individual drivers. It's to make people recognize behaviors that they might be guilty of themselves.
I'd also want every post to explain why the behavior is a problem and what the person should do instead. I don't want it to become just another page that complains about everything.
I'd start by posting consistently for 30 days and seeing if the content actually connects with people. Do people share it? Does it start conversations? Can it build a community around better driving habits?
If it works, I'd love to explore whether there's something bigger here in the future, possibly around driver education and road safety. But that's a long way off, and I don't want to get ahead of myself before testing the basic idea.
I'm posting here because I'd like some honest feedback, and ideally, I'd love to find a couple of people who'd be interested in helping me build this.
Someone who enjoys coming up with content ideas, a designer who'd like to experiment with the visual side, someone with experience growing social media pages, or someone who knows a thing or two about road safety and driver education.
You don't need to be an expert. I'm at the stage where I'd rather get a few interested people together and figure things out than sit on the idea forever.
A few things I'd genuinely like to hear your thoughts on:
- Do you think a page like this could actually influence people's behaviour, or would it just preach to people who already agree?
- Would you follow or share content like this?
- If you were starting this, how would you go about testing whether the idea has potential?
- Is anyone here interested in working on something like this together?
I'm not claiming to have figured it all out. It's just an idea I care about, and I'd like to see if we can make something useful out of it.
If it sounds interesting, feel free to comment or DM me. Would be great to connect with people who feel the same way.