Another name of arrogance: Bangalore autowallas

Everyone living in Bangalore has at least once experienced the arrogance of the auto drivers I believe. I have had the ‘privilege’ to experience it many a times. I don’t say all are like that, but at least more than 70% are like that.

Some of the malpractices that they do: say the meter is not working and demand the money as they like, rig up the meter so that it shows inflated readings, demand one and half the amount even before 9:30 or 10 p.m, or the most common one: give an odd look at you and reject to take you to the destination which you wish to go.

I had been in many places like kolar, chickballapur, tumkur, mysore but, nowhere did I see this much of arrogance and indifference towards passengers. If you ask them to take you to the place that they don’t wish to go, they see you as if you have committed some crime and reject to come outright.

A few months ago, on an evening I had to go from srinagar to vijaynagar to meet a famous personality. There were no direct buses in that route and I did not have our bike that day. So I had to resort to the autos. I had asked at least 8 autos before I got one. All of them rejected to come. Some of them gave an expression as if I was asking a part in their property. Even the person who agreed to come asked more money. I had no other choice but to oblige.

Today also I had a similar experience. We came from mysore to satellite bus stand. We stay in Kalidasa Layout (srinagar ) which is not even 2 km away from the bus stand. Many autos declined to come. Those agreed to come were asking 40 rupees. The actual amount would be at max 19 rupees. This is just an example how the autowallas of Bangalore are looting people.

This is not my opinion alone. If one does a survey of opinions of people about the auto drivers, I am sure that at least more than 90 percent would not have a good opinion about them. There should be some authority to regulate the autos something similar to the pre-paid system exists in mysore and/or some better parallel system should evolve. Otherwise, there will be no end to their own-made rules.