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A Study of Traffic Police Profiles on the Occasion of a Government Motorcade

Well it all happened while I was walking back from the Internet Cafe. Having just succeeded in downloading about 40 images, without interruption, I was in an exceedingly good mood. And a good mood activates my curious eyes. I opened my curious eyes and saw that there was minimal traffic on TTK road and there were lots of traffic police officers. Being that there were few distractions - I was able to focus on the traffic police. Was there a common feature shared by traffic police? So I started collecting data via my photo study.

First I captured the quiet before the storm - i.e. the absent traffic before the official Government of Tamil Nadu Motorcade. Usually the traffic at the intersection of the First Main Road (Indian streets are named in an extremely creative manner) and T.T.K. Road (at the Park Sheraton) looks like this:

However, when my curious eyes were drawn to the quiet, this is what I saw:

You'll note the absolute absence of any traffic. Even a errant dog was the target of animated waving and shouting from the traffic police. So we watched - and then the white Ambassadors appeared - one by one, (except one) making the proper turn at the traffic signal. Here you will notice in the background a single white Ambassador, the beginning of the motorcade. By focusing on the motorcade, I found that many photos captured a traffic officer in profile, restraining the crowd, waving anxious dogs off the street and perhaps discouraging a cow from monopolizing the street.

In the meantime, the motorcade was moving with full steam - starting with the first car

One got a bit anxious (note the car to the left - they were supposed to be in single file) - and darted into the opposite lane, taking a short cut around the traffic signal.

But after about 20 cars (the Tamil Nadu government is a BIG government with lots of officials that need official transport) - it was all over.

So then, I started to accumulate photos of traffic police officers - quietly without distrubing their serious work.

My only goal here is to present data - and you can open your curious eyes, look for a common denominator, create your own hypotheses and explore them with your own protocols.

There is even a woman's police force: Notes from Chennai - better than Disneyland, with free admission to all events! Where there are signs and people everywhere:

and where the law of large noises prevails:

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer