MARPOL has done a tremendous job of implying fear and guilt into our system with regard to marine pollution. We have seen that seafarer’s very much afraid of throwing even paper in vast ocean even though there is no policeman to watch and punish. Supposed they threw unknowingly , they feel guilty for their act.
In contrast we come across many traffic violations at city in day to day life. We come across most common violations like not wearing helmet , signal jumping , overloaded vehicle, not having driving license, proper documents etc., Even though there is a policeman to regulate and catch the offenders.And in a population like India , it is not possible to impose fines on an every traffic violation.
Suppose if they start imposing fine on all violators , it will cause traffic jam on the road due to the vehicle stoppage.Also it is not possible to send the bill to the home , due to lack of technological development. And also people will start offending about police and the government for being rude. This is due to the fact , any change in previous behavior will make them think so.
Does paying fine method has reduced the traffic violation ?
No actually it increased the traffic violation. In a developing economic condition like our country , we cannot impose a have fine like the western countries. We can only impose fine with respect to GDP per capita and also we cannot impose a fine according to a wage scale because that will lead to discrimination in a secular country like India.
Recently a research in the Isreal day care center shown that imposing fine will lead to further violation. In order to reduce the number of parents being late to pick their child , the management had imposed the fine for the parents coming late. After imposing the fine , the late comer has been substantially increased. When the day care center changes its strategy to social norms to market norms , there is a change in behavior with parents. ie., There are fear and guilt in a parent’s mind before imposing the fine and also there is personal affectionate between teacher and parents. The moment they change the strategy, the guilt and fear got reduced to substantial amount and they developed an attitude for paying late. So the fine will be the price of guilt and fear.
How IMO did through MARPOL ?
Marpol has induced fear and guilt in our minds. MARPOL posters are everywhere in the ship and there is a constant training at sea and shore continuously even though we knew them by heart. Most of them are fed up with constant training for years repeatedly.The fear is induced such as imprisonment, fine and loss of job, Guilt is induced for been polluting the environment. In this system guilt has overcome the fear. There is a chance for a seaman to throw garbage when working in a remote area , but he will not do so. Even though he gets caught with master , he will most likely give a warning than reporting to the company because integrity is very strong in shipping.
Instead of blaming the government and traffic department , we should find a solution to overcome the problem. We will see , how to overcome the traffic violation ?
Government has the control over media , newspaper and theater. There should be a constant awareness , advertisement and consequence of traffic violations in media , newspaper and theatre. There should be a constant advertisement even though the people will gets exhausted. Running digital advertisements, slogans , sign boards also should be done. This will increase the fear and guilt in the deep subconscious mind with regard to the traffic violation. If the person gets caught , along with the small amount of fine , he should be given the training with regard to his traffic violation. After he has given the training , he should sign that he has understood the regulation and hereafter he will not do so. After years of training , it will get registered in their minds.
Constant motivation , training and education along with inducing fear and guilt is very important than blindly imposing fines.Even in business it holds good when it is imposing any rules on employee.
Deepak sekar 