Traffic and the slowdown
Sukumar Ranganathan -
Friday, May 01, 2009 7:30 PM
Are there fewer vehicles on the roads of Indian cities?
And is this because of the slowdown?
If so, does it mean that most people whose job requires them to be on the road are now spending more time in the office -- not exactly the best way to boost sales in a slowdown?
Or does it simply mean more people are using public transport? An executive I met in Bangalore last week said there are fewer trucks ferrying construction material and the like on the roads of the city.
And even Bangalore's new airport that had looked crowded just a few days after it opened late last year now looks empty.
There is, of course, no proof that this is indeed the case, but out of the US comes this interesting statistic that shows that there are fewer road deaths during a recession. Why? Because there are fewer people on the roads. QED