These car stickers about Mumbai will help calm your road rage

Despite the pandemic Mumbai traffic continued to worsen over the last year what with roads being dug up for the Metro construction leaving the cityrsquos arteries clogged with traffic during peak hoursIn a bid to express educate and yet find something to laugh about in the city online platform Roads of Mumbai launched innovative car stickers earlier this week to help Mumbaikars cope with traffic better It did not take long for them to find multiple takers From lsquoTolerance Level WEH Trafficrsquo to lsquoHave Brains Wear Helmetsrsquo and even lsquoWe Are In This Together MumbaiTrafficrsquo they are sure to make you laugh even during an exhausting few hours on the roadsTalking about the initiative Roads of Mumbairsquos founder who chose to stay anonymous explains ldquoThe idea behind the car stickers was to bring a smile to the faces of regular commuters travelling by cars Imagine paying lakhs of rupees to buy a car and then driving on the same roads filled with potholes unbearable traffic jams rising fuel costs no space to park your car and traffic violators driving dangerouslyrdquoThe creative media professional adds that facing such conditions on a daily basis can be frustrating and the stickers are a medium to help express this road rage in a subtle yet funny wayWhile there are other kinds of road safety stickers these also feature those which focus on specific roadways used by many in the city and thus become instantly relatable to all ldquoThere are specific stickers for the most infamous roads such as WEH Western Express Highway EEH Eastern Express Highwayand Shilphata Junction Apart from these some stickers have been made to discourage honking and to remind motorists to follow road safety laws ndash all in a fun wayrdquo says the founderHowever while the stickers may strike everyone as pure humour it is not all fun and games for Roads of MumbaiThe platform made live in 2016 was started with the aim to raise awareness about road safety civic issues the importance of public transport footpaths and alternate modes of transportThe founder reveals that it took a visit to Sri Lanka before starting the project which ignited the idea that change was possible Surprised to see how disciplined Lankans were on the road the founder says ldquoIt made me realise that if our neighbouring country can be so disciplined why canrsquot we replicate their civic senseGoing by anecdotal evidence Mumbairsquos traffic seems to have increased during the Covid19 pandemicldquoPeople who can afford personal cars and twowheelers are avoiding public transport to reduce their chances of getting infected This is adding more congestion on our roads Over the last decade the combined road length in Mumbai has remained unchanged at 2000 km but the density of cars has almost doubled ndash from 203 lakh to 402 lakh now This leads to more congestion and frustration among commuters travelling by road every day I hope when people read the lines on these stickers they will bring a smile to their faces and cheer them uprdquo says the founderWith such thought behind the stickers it only makes us wonder whether the person who runs Roads of Mumbai as a passion project spends a lot of time on the road ndash or is merely observantldquoI used to spend a lot of time on the road in preCovid19 times but I have been working from home since March 2020 due to the lockdown and the situation has remained more or less the same Mumbai had the second most congested traffic in the world out of 416 countries in 2020 according to the Tom Tom Traffic Index So the stickers are based on my personal observations of driving in Mumbai over the yearsrdquoThe Tom Tom Traffic Index is released by a Netherlandsbased location technology provider Tom Tom International BV They publish their traffic congestion insights annually and for 2020 they tracked the levels for 416 cities around the worldWith over 50000 followers on Twitter the initiative has been launched for everybody in the city As of now 219 people have already placed orders for the stickers through the emailer list put out in the teaser Soon purchasing the stickers will be open to all as Roads of Mumbai is currently working on printing the stickers and developing the payment gateway for it The stickers are priced at Rs 150 for a set of fourThis is only the start because Roads of Mumbai plans to create many more such stickers to raise awareness about road safety and the innumerable delays in infrastructure projects in the city ndash all with a funny sarcastic twist of course