Does an Engineering degree guarantee you a “traffic sense”?

After the day’s tiring work, all of us would like to reach home, as early as possible, to relax and get prepared for the following grueling day. It is quite expected that we will always be trying our bit, be it jumping the red signal or sneaking in the lane from wrong side, to reach our homes 5 minutes early. In fact this has become a way of life for us, and we never realize anything unusual in this. But a recent incident made me realize that this “usual” thing is somehow responsible for all of us reaching “unusually” late at times.
I have got stuck in traffic jams many a times, and it was my long wish to see the “reason” of jam. I think it won’t be as boring as being stuck in the traffic jam. So one day, I had this opportunity to see the “traffic jam” happening in front of my eyes.
I was noticing a big expensive car (which could be easily a limousine for Indian roads), standing parallel to my bus, with a techie driving it (well, the car had a sticker of a famous MNC stuck on his windshield). And in all probable conditions he was in a better ambience than most of the people in stranded vehicles around him. It was a two way road, with no barrier to mark the separation. The traffic was being maneuvered by a traffic police-man, and we were made to stand for some 15minutes, which was agreeably frustrating. The opposite lane was almost vacant and quite tempting for any motorist to zoom and reach ahead of all. But as the usual traffic sense would have demanded, every driver restrained from that temptation, only to make sure that s/he doesn’t block the expected traffic in the opposite direction.
But this “Indian Limo” techie, mostly bitten by the bug of “innovation and thinking out of the box”, steered his driving wheel and got into the opposite lane. I could hear an illiterate auto rickshaw driver murmuring in the local language, which was beyond my comprehension. Probably he was giving words to my thoughts.
It was poser for me, as to what would have prompted the person behind the Limo wheels to do this. To me it seemed that it was total defiance of the basic logical thinking, which even a toddler could have reasoned.
The driver behind Limo was quick to take his place and so were the following drivers. Now the Limo was starkly in the vacant lane and the traffic jam was inevitable. Soon we had a big TATA lorry coming in the opposite direction and a helpless techie blocking its way. A usual argument followed, where techie was obviously fighting a loosing battle, and the vehicles kept on piling behind the TATA lorry, which resulted in a massive traffic jam.
I am sure if I had not witnessed it, probably I would have been cursing the deplorable roads of Bangalore and the inept Traffic Police.
But next time I get caught in Traffic Jam, I will surely think twice before holding someone the architect of Traffic Jam. Probably with a little patience, we can make traveling a better experience for us and for others too…