My Rant on Bangalore Traffic (and now even a note of appreciation... its not all bad)

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by Rudra Sen

Have ideas..put it down here. Let's see if we can seek a meeting with high officials in police with our ideas/solutions/thoughts..FROM TEAM-BHP.

With all due respect, I don't see this happening. No one has the time to sit and do good for others anymore, it seems. Hell, when was the last time anyone on this forum voted in the municipal elections.

For the record, I didn't.

[ajitkommini]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

With all due respect, I don't see this happening. No one has the time to sit and do good for others anymore, it seems. Hell, when was the last time anyone on this forum voted in the municipal elections.

For the record, I didn't.

Actually, I think Rudra's idea is great. The DCP (Traffic) we currently have in Bangalore is Mr. M.A. Saleem. He seems like an intelligent and approachable person. We had invited him to our college when he was the S.P. at Manipal, for a sort of discussion / forum thing. I'm willing to bet he would be open to genuine feedback / suggestions etc. I myself have been thinking about this for some time and would be really interested in supporting something like this.

[DRC]

Originally Posted by eflanker

I say privatize atleast the traffic police !

, Exactly my thoughts. I mentioned in one of the earlier posts and also had written to TOI about the same.
The company who earned the contract will certanly have to collect fines properly to survive.
And, Lot of Police force who are wasting time in the sun can be better used for law and order (late evening crimes!).

[sharathjeppu]

Last Sunday there was this chap who was coming down straight in his Ikon had his bumper brushed with an Omni. The Ikon stopped and out stepped a chap who looked decently dressed and he started hurl abuses in kannada. The Omni driver apologized telling that he was sorry and it was his mistake. There was no damage to either vehicle as it was just a light brush. This seemed to for some reason infuriate the Ikon driver even more. He then started to manhandle the driver of the Omni Van. I didn't get to watch how it ended.

I was remarking to my wife that this was so unnecessary. The whole incident resulted in nothing but just venting of frustrations. The Omni driver after taking all the abuses would perhaps go an vent it out on some other poor soul on the road or at home on his wife and kids. The Ikon driver also goes away in a foul mood having started his morning so brightly. Nothing comes out of the fight.

We proceed from there to another place. There's a little bit of a queue up of traffic on one side of the road. Vehicles immediately start switching on to the opposite side of the road to get ahead and end up blocking on coming traffic. This results in a completely unnecessary traffic jam which takes several minutes to resolve with luck. However, I don't see anyone reprimanding the errant drivers here. Some yelling / frustration venting here would definitely have some beneficial effects hopefully. Something like what I heard motorists do in London these days with motorists talking on Cell phones while driving. Link

I thing some of these social pressures are a good way of bringing in some traffic sense into people.


Some of the ideas that I had were like this.
1. Have a "breakdown penalty" on major roads. This could be different for different roads depending on how much of a traffic jam the broken down vehicle creates.
2. The traffic police should have a neat way of indicating traffic violators by doing something like marking/painting the windshield of the vehicle. This should be highly visible and cost the owner some money to undo. This I think would be a fairly effective way of Social ostracism[FONT=&quot][/FONT].
3. Have a web site with a hall of Shame listing with violation scores for drivers and their vehicles. This could be directly connected with the auto insurance companies for premium calculations. (Guess they would be more than delighted)

Have several other (some not so practical) ideas. But then I am trying to think out of the box. Maybe something brilliant will pop up . If anyone of you have an opportunity to hook up with somebody in the traffic Police to present new ideas, mine are "copyright free". Infact you can go right ahead and take credit for it.

[black12rr]

Today it even got worse ,coming from kormangala side entering the ring road to reach airport road , there used to be right U turn to enter embassy golf links (IBM,microsoft and other compaines) .Now morons have blocked that also .I had to go further climb the flyover ,go straight and at indirangar take U turn and again come back 1 km to enter embassy golf links .
The deadly U turn in middle of the airport ring road today got a taffic constable .

[prabuddhadg]

Originally Posted by madhav

I always threaten auto drivers or cabbies that I'll get off and not pay them if they drive like a maniac and 9 out 10 will oblige and try to drive properly. Next time you guys try it and see how these guys fall in line. But the real problem is the so-called educated lot!!!

I do that too, and once in fact, a taxi driver I had told to drive gently, turned around, smiled to me and said, "Ab aisa lag raha hai jaise kisi barey sahib ki gaari chala raha hoon" meaning - Now it feels like I am driving a big shot's car.
Most of the time they drive so that the passenger can not complain against the driver trying to make an extra buck by letting the timer of the meter also earn.

[ballkey]

I was wondering if we can do our bit for easing the congestion -
How about staggered working hours? May not be possible for everybody, but should atleast be an option for a good % of IT workers. If you commute in your car, why not come to office a bit early? and leave early?(or late ) I beat the rush in OMR/ECR everyday , by reaching office at 7:30. I'd also like companies to encourage working from home - wherever possible. Much as I hate to admit it, I guess cars cause most of the traffic congestion. We need to take the first step.

[sharathjeppu]

Very true. The other thing that could ease congestion is the development of an efficient and comfortable public transportation system. The roads will never be able to accomodate the no. of vehicles that are getting added to the roads every day. Perhaps we should also adopt the singapore model.

Originally Posted by ballkey

I was wondering if we can do our bit for easing the congestion -
How about staggered working hours? May not be possible for everybody, but should atleast be an option for a good % of IT workers. If you commute in your car, why not come to office a bit early? and leave early?(or late ) I beat the rush in OMR/ECR everyday , by reaching office at 7:30. I'd also like companies to encourage working from home - wherever possible. Much as I hate to admit it, I guess cars cause most of the traffic congestion. We need to take the first step.

[nosfreak]

The last i've been to banglore was 1997. was traveling to kerala at that time. drove fom hyd to banglore (reached in the evening) and man the traffic was whoa.... worst of all was traveling in a Tata Estate with my family. Now i dont how things have changed, must be more havoc than i thought.
At Hyd.

Its like do whatever ur want on the (yeh mera baap ka road ha) the common words used. Youngsters with their wonderful modded bikes and those noisy exhauts .. racing in the street's not bothered about other ppl on the road. Its a daily scene in hyd. If one boy racing his bike another wants to race with . Thats the thing in Hyd. Everybody copying each other to show whose boss?. Worse case if they are preety girls driving and theses dudes showing off. Even cops dont control them.. pay them a a birb n vroommmm...... ur left alone.i drive everybody to my office luckily at 3:00 pm and go back home at bout 4 to 5:00 am. At times i do feel scared to drive on teh roads caz of the traffic.. never know what may happen... Roads r still getting worse than ever.. its only that Hyderabad side has better rd's than secunderabad..

Even though to have a laugh for the day.

Watching the boys with their modded Hayabusa's (ct100) stopping at the stop light, and KICKING their bike to start it and then starts the noises of creation

daily scene.

[Jaggu]

The U turn in inner RR is closed and amazingly no pile up at peak hour on either sides, dont know under the flyover situation coz i was over it.. but hey if 1 km more can save the pile up its great idea.. kudos to bangalore traffic cops

[NIP]

Originally Posted by nosfreak

The last i've been to banglore was 1997.

bangalore's traffic has grown exponetially now. back in 1997, i can safely say bangalore was still a sleepy town.

[ajitkommini]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

The U turn in inner RR is closed and amazingly no pile up at peak hour on either sides, dont know under the flyover situation coz i was over it.. but hey if 1 km more can save the pile up its great idea.. kudos to bangalore traffic cops

Exactly! this is the whole purpose of having cloverleafs and loops. People really need to get into the habit of driving slightly further to ease congestion. Doesnt look like it'll happen anytime soon though, with people breaking down barriers, lifting bikes over medians, riding on the pavements and so on.

[black12rr]

Yes the U turn in front of DELL building and TVS showroom is closed ,but there is one more U turn ,in middle of the RR .Its little dangerous there .watch out .
Today dint go over the flyover,but under it and took a U turn and came back ,its much shorter .I think the pile up issue is sorted .
But any one starting from dell towards airport road has to take long ride to middle of RR and take that U turn and proceed to airport road flyover.

[car_whizz]

Originally Posted by skiddyrow

i would have to agree with the author on this one. I just drove down from Chennai to Bangalore a few days back and it took me around 4 hours to get to Hosur on a stunning NH7, and then nearly two hours to cover the last 30 km spoiling the whole experience. A drive from Jayanagar to MG road took me an hour and 40 minutes on a Saturday afternoon and the frustration of having people cutting me off at all points and driving on the wrong side of the road and trying to muscle their way back in left me totally irritated. I will never complain about the Chennai traffic again! While Chennai has its share of problems as well, i've never felt this frustrated in a long time.

This is a test of our tolerance day in and day out. One of my collegue, who came in from US to Bangalore was absolutely surprised by the way people drive here. She had visited all indian metros. What she found different here is " It seems that there is no traffic rule in Bangalore. Still the accidents are rare. People driving here have tremendous reflex".

[P1tBull]

Originally Posted by black12rr

Today it even got worse ,coming from kormangala side entering the ring road to reach airport road , there used to be right U turn to enter embassy golf links (IBM,microsoft and other compaines) .Now morons have blocked that also .I had to go further climb the flyover ,go straight and at indirangar take U turn and again come back 1 km to enter embassy golf links .
The deadly U turn in middle of the airport ring road today got a taffic constable .

Don't go up the flyover. Go down the left and take the U-Turn under the flyover. Thats where the U-Turn is now for EGL.