[vipinendran]

Originally Posted by sunil8089

Cattle the real menace in Indian highways…
But one sad thing in India I heard of is, people near highways do this purposefully to make money. They take some old cows / bull to the highway bushes and drive them to the speeding vehicles. I don’t know it’s reality. Readers please comment.

Sad but true, this is a technique used by many people along the villages on the highways. A student of mine from an interior village in Tamilnadu confirmed this very fact from his village! In fact a drunkard from his village used to use the same technique by using his bicycle. ( to exort money) A year back he and his bicycle popped in front of a van carrying 10 passengers and when the van driver swered to his right to avoid the drunk cyclist it toppled over resulting in the death of seven passengers and this man was very proud of causing this. Once the police came to know of it they took him in, but no idea whether he was back doing the same stuff. When such maniacs are present the best solution is to drive at sane speeds and be extremely alert, as they say live in the present moment

[naveenroy]

I'd love to change the heading of this post to "Humans - the real menace on Indian highways". No, seriously.

We must be one of the most single minded pig-headed set of road users on the planet. No, before you hand me an infraction for stating the obvious, let me tell you that I have at least survived near misses when driving the car and even the bike on the NH7. Once - it was an old woman crossing the road and twice - by oncoming "traffic" - full on with headlights on. A lorry and an Ape.

When going to drop my parents back in my hometown by car, I was doing around 90 on an open road. I take a curve on the road and I see this old woman crossing the road. No worries or a care - no looking the sides. Just purposefully walking across the road. My dad - who is just recovering from a heart surgery nearly had another attack then and there! Pathetic stuff. Maybe the old woman's son just wanted to make some money.

And recently, when I was riding home on the CBR - thankfully on an open stretch - I see a full-sized lorry - stopping horizontally on the road - blocking both lanes. Thankfully I had time to react and stop. I open my helmet and ask the dude what he was doing. Like it was his right to do so, he said he is turning the lorry around. I asked why. He says he has to take a diversion to go into a town. I said that he can do so further ahead. He says no, he cannot do it. I wouldn't want to reproduce the rest of the conversation here (mostly from me). Well, I did remind him of his lineage etc and quickly pushed off from there.

I just cannot understand these kind of stuff on the open highway.

What is worse is that the towns/villages have now encroached upon the lands next to the highway - building stalls, selling stuff so the open highways aren't so "open" anymore. Things will only get worse until the government brings a law that you cannot prosecute the driver of a vehicle in case of an accident involving an animal or human just crossing the road.

[YaeJay]

Originally Posted by poloman

I would say your post is pretty one sided. Cattles are not the real menace on Indian highways. it can be termed as one of the many menaces. The real menace as usual is careless and reckless driving by humans. Always use the rightmost lane only for overtaking. Never exceed 80Kmph. This can give you sufficient reaction time for most of such eventualities.

cattles are never the real menace. We all know that. They are not educated, trained or do they have an opputunity to learn. This is not about cattle at all. most of us are animal lovers, not maniacs here.

I speak from my experience, at about 75 kms on a no traffic noon/very expensive road. My passenger is my dad. he is 80. someone threw a lil calf on to the road, hit the brakes, smell of smokin rubber, the little one passes by to feed on the vegetation thats on the middle.

Instincts, said dont brake, dont brake when you turn, thats what we learn all these years of driving, I did everything opposite to that. That lil goat was first priority, I knew if i hit the brakes hard on a curve, and lock it, i am going to go belly up, and I know its going to hurt me, total the car, and eventually kill my dad. But, still did the same, lucky for us each and everyone lived through it. And, the little one was feeding on some vegetation. It had no idea as to what just happened. Me and my dad laughed with relief.


I have become a cynic, applying your logic, the lions at the zoo shouldnt toy with you when you are taking a little shortcut to the hippo pool?


And we all admit to the fact, the true real menace are humans. I hope this clears your cloud!

[LoneWolf9]

As rightly pointed out, one way to curb this issue is fencing which would be expensive.

The cheapest way to tackle this problem and still keep the greenery alive is to grow cactus in the median as well as at the side of the highway.

Cactus is replusive for cattles and cattle grazing on the median would be solved. Also cactus utilizes less water and can grow easily at most places across india. There are different varieties of cacti which do not grow too much in height thereby ensuring a good view of the side.

While this may not completely eradicate the problem, but this would reduce the problem to a great extent.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by YaeJay

Instincts, said dont brake, dont brake when you turn, thats what we learn all these years of driving, I did everything opposite to that. That lil goat was first priority, I knew if i hit the brakes hard on a curve, and lock it, i am going to go belly up, and I know its going to hurt me, total the car, and eventually kill my dad. But, still did the same, lucky for us each and everyone lived through it.

Sorry - But we need to distinguish good outcomes from good decisions.

You endangered your car's safety for an innocent animal (even if prodded by a malevolent human) -> Bad decision.
Nothing happened -> Great outcome.

Having a great outcome from a bad decision is simply like the roll of the dice - there's nothing to be gained from doing that or feeling proud about it. If you repeat this scenario many times around, bad decisions will necessarily lead to bad outcomes (totalling the car / hurting or killing your passengers).

Let's not draw wrong conclusions.

And please, let's keep hypothetical hippo zoo shortcuts off the table - that scenario doesn't even exist on paper!

[F150]

A important point in terms of precautions that could be taken would be, to slow down when you are approaching a village on the highway. I am talking about the highways which have bypass and not the highways which pass thru villages continuously

Cattle could be found in and around the village but not the mid way of the road connecting two villages.

I see several posts about, who the real menace is. I think that's not the point of the thread. Cattle crossing the highway is a situation often encountered in INDIA and this thread is to discuss the precautions and avoiding maneuvers that can be taken.

[geronimo]

Originally Posted by vipinendran

Sad but true, this is a technique used by many people along the villages on the highways. A student of mine from an interior village in Tamilnadu confirmed this very fact from his village!

Originally Posted by Tgo

And as for your speculation of people doing it on purpose to get some cash I highly doubt it. The animal would earn them a greater profit in the long run if the owner is actually into dairy farming. As per my experience from that incident it was clear that the cattle left out for grazing in the day is rounded up and forced to get back home before dawn. That is the time when such accidents are likely to occur.

This is very much an active scam in rural areas.

Earlier this year, we went for a road trip to Gujarat from Delhi in 2 cars (for safety). One of the evenings, we got a bit late in returning and it had started to get dark. We were driving at a relatively sedate speed of 70-80 kmph on one of the Kucch highways - with a close eye on the other car.

Out of nowhere, a large buffalo came running in front of the car behind me, and hit it head on. Pretty much like 'Scenario 2' of the first post - significant damage to the bumper, fender, bonnet and the windscreen got smashed too with the head of the buffalo. Within a matter of seconds, there was an aggressive villager in a Bolero who appeared out of nowhere and blocked our cars - actually the entire 2 lane highway - and started shouting at the top of his lungs that we've taken away his livelihood. Before we could react, he made a phone call from inside his Bolero, and within 5 minutes, we were surrounded by 25 burly villagers with sticks, coming in bikes and vans.

Clearly, if it was not planned, such mobilisation can set examples for the best emergency rescue services in the world!

The car was a 20L+ german steed, so thankfully all the occupants were safe and the car's internals were also fine.. i.e. it could still drive (albeit with a broken windscreen and exteriors).

This was followed by hours of haggling, threatening, pushing, shoving, expletives etc. Phone calls to police did not help. We also had women in the group, so the situation was very stressful, and seemed to be getting out of hand. The villagers were claiming compensation of ~1.5L for the buffalo! Who - by the way - had apparently walked off. As a follow on to the arguments, I went to trace the buffalo - and neither I nor the villagers could identify the buffalo which had been hit from the others in the stable (yes, it had found its way back to the stable).

Long story short, we ended up paying 10k as compensation at the end of the day to the villagers, just to let us go. In hindsight, we were thankful to god for our safety, and angry with ourselves for letting us get to exposed to such risks.

Anger with such practices existed for a while - but did not sustain after we got to know that we got off lightly, and that this is common on the Western highways.

Guys - genuine request - please do not drive after dark, especially on state highways and below. Driving slow does not help.

[a4anurag]

Attaching two pictures of the Outer Ring Road that I use.



The length of my usage on this road is 27.9 kms and in this stretch I find dogs & pigs crossing the road; cattle sitting on the divider and eating cud; humans jogging and doing yoga on the rightmost lane (fastest lane)



I just don't understand how do these guys gain entry as all the entries and exits are having toll booth.



Look at the barrier and the height!

Anurag.

[abirnale]

This is indeed a very handy article for what not to do and to do in case of cattle threat on our roads. In my personal experience this is very valuable piece of information.

Incidence from 5 years ago - I was returning from Tirupati and had seen this happening to me but luckily I escaped with only broken bonnet latch on my car. A bullock cart was waiting to cross the road somewhere near kolar and I was around 100 Kmph in my esteem. Since everything appeared ok and I had seen the cart waiting for me, I did not even slow down (my mistake, btw) and continued to cruise. At that speed the noise of the car and wind movement scared the bulls and they simply came on the road ignoring their master's instructions! It was split second in which almighty intervened my brain probably. I noticed the gap in opposite side guard-stones on the road. Seeing no oncoming vehicles, I swerved in the gap and landed off road. That impact of jumping out of road on to the side ditch, broke the bonnet latch. Thank god, it did not bounce on my windscreen! And i was still able to maneuver the car back on road. The learning from this - always exercise caution if you see cattle, no matter what.

The cattle cannot be always predicted. The precaution is always better with all the tips mentioned by many here in this thread.

Having spent some years in western countries, I had made to believe that devices such as below actually can help deter animals (read deer) - they make whistle sound when car is in motion and can scare away the animals from a distance.



Source: WalMart.

Still, a point to note is - cattle is unpredictable. Even though you get one such device fitted on the car, if you see something on the road that is a cattle, all the tips in this thread should flash in front of your eyes to take best suited action. I think in India, we are so much used to the noise, that cattle most likely won't notice this warning device noise

By the way, there are some more articles on the moose and cattle accident avoidance. If interested, do read this - WikiHow - How to avoid a moose or Deer collision

Again, thanks a ton for such a wonderful discussion and learnings

[GRAND23]

Interesting thread.
Full Credits to Sunil.

Actually I was thinking about this issue and wanted to discuss on this, anyway the thread is already started. Few days back I was driving at Bangalore-Hassan highway. Almost every median was covered with bushes. After I travelled for few kilometers, I saw sheeps and cattles coming out of median from nowhere. It was so dangerous situation to me, pretty much like "Scenario 2", vehicles behind me were cruising at high speeds, I didn't know how to tackle the situation. What I did was, I just switched on parking lights and drived my car to the extreme left lane.

Initially I was in right lane(near to median) maintaining 80-100 kmph, but issue was I couldn't predict when and what comes from median. This is very dangerous situation. The safe game what I deployed was to drive in left lane. Atleast I will have some time to react to the situation.

The toll what we pay is not only for roads but also for safety. How these highway administration can be so irresponsible? The tolls are increasing in almost every highways but not safety. There are toll highway inspector's who keep travelling in highways, but i don't know why they are not escalating this issue.

[Nanometer]

The issue i see on Indian roads is to do with having cattle crossing bridge or something of that sort , we also hear a lot of tuskers being hit by trains crossing tracks , its sad but we need better planning and study to understand the way we build our transport system . There has to be a way for people and animals to cross over or under an expressway.

[satishv1987]

I narrowly missed ending up with a totaled Ritz a couple of months ago . I was travelling from Bangalore to Chennai on the Bangalore -Chennai Highway with my wife during the first week of September. We'd just crossed Vellore & it was around 6 30 in the evening. That time of the day when the headlights are yet to take full effect & there is still some natural light. I was doing around 80 kph & there was an Innova 10-15 m in front of me, travelling at around the same speed. Both cars were on the middle lane. The right lane was empty & I decided to overtake the Innova.I was about to press on the gas pedal in order to overtake when I saw something big & black from the corner of my eye,scurry across the road from the right side.It was a buffalo.I swerved immediately to the left & so did the Innova. The animal came straight into the path of the other car & despite the driver's best efforts , the right side of the car T-boned the buffalo . On impact, the buffalo was thrown in the air, it rotated around the Y axis like a rag doll a couple of times & ended up on the side of the road. If I'd decided to go ahead with the overtaking maneuver , I would have run over the buffalo & my car would have turned turtle, as described in the 3rd scenario
The Innova guy immediately stopped his car on the left hand side a few metres down the road & so did I. On inspection, we saw that the right side of the Innova was completely damaged & the radiator had gone bust & was leaking. Must thank my lucky stars that my car was not lying upside down in the middle of a national highway

[sunil8089]

Originally Posted by Tgo

I have been through the same incidence three years ago it was a scenario 2 type hit bu the animal rolled over from the bonnet totaling the vehicle in the process and killing itself too.

You can read about it here:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...ml#post2318549

Gone through the thread, so sorry to know about the incident. But thank God, you are safe.

[Rubbertramps]

Yes. I see a lot of animals grazing in the divider as they have trees and grass lands in there. Some times they are with a person with him holding the animal and sometimes without anyone. It is too dangerous. Going in the right most lane is the most dangerous lane in this case.

[pdiddy741]

Truly a big problem.....a friend of mine ended up in hospital with a torn ligament when a dog came in front of his motorcycle at high speed