[suman]

Originally Posted by ravibhat

Since final decision is not yet taken I feel Governement won't do this. Otherwise its waste upgrading highways all over India, From last 4 years India has spent thousands of crors on these projects.

There's no logic behind what they do. Its an easier option for them to take rather than trying to drill discipline into drivers. They've already reduced the speed limit for cars to 50 kmph on NH8 on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway - one of the BEST stretches of motorable road available today. The idea behind making this expressway was to reduce commuting time.....all they've done so far is reduce the top speed!

[mclaren1885]

Instead of spending insane amounts of money buying patrol cars, speed guns, employing more people what they need to do is fence the highways on both sides to prevent animals from entering. Then allocate the two wheelers to use the service road so asto make it safer for them. Allocate one lane for the trucks or make 3 lanes based on speed. And see to it that they are followed. This in itself will make our highways a better place.

[.anshuman]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Speed cameras are there only till the Delhi border IIRC.
I have never seen them in Haryana or Punjab, except when you enter Ludhiana city limits.

Beware of white and blue versa and cops sitting in a soft top gypsy with a radar in Haryana.You'v been lucky.

[satish_appasani]

The govt. and officials never try to identify the root cause. They should start applying their brains when coming up with some standards. There should be a scientific study before they come out with the limits. They can't come up with the numbers out of thin air. Because the chairman of the commity is scared when driven at 50 KMPH doesn't mean that is the max speed to be set as limit.

[ajitkommini]

Originally Posted by satish_appasani

Because the chairman of the commity is scared when driven at 50 KMPH doesn't mean that is the max speed to be set as limit.

Nice one Maybe he has a couple of boy-racer type kids too

[suman]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

I have never seen them in Haryana or Punjab, except when you enter Ludhiana city limits.

Originally Posted by .anshuman

Beware of white and blue versa and cops sitting in a soft top gypsy with a radar in Haryana.You'v been lucky.

Spot on Anshuman. Tanveer, even Haryana Police have their interceptors in the form of a Versa. Was returning home the other day, just got off the Udyog Vihar flyover a little before the Iffco Chowk flyover and there they were! Braked hard, they were busy with a Scorpio they'd got hold of so all attention was focussed there - else I'd have had a light wallet again

[ebmrajesh]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Instead of spending insane amounts of money buying patrol cars, speed guns, employing more people what they need to do is fence the highways on both sides to prevent animals from entering. Then allocate the two wheelers to use the service road so asto make it safer for them. Allocate one lane for the trucks or make 3 lanes based on speed. And see to it that they are followed. This in itself will make our highways a better place.

exactly, also they should construct some under bypass roads/bridges and foot bridges, if they've to construct highways dividings smaller towns and villages. otherwise it will lead to lot of two wheelers, tractors and bullock carts coming in the wrong way just to avoid the U-turns which are placed after several kms.

this is a normal scenario in blr - chennai GQ, quite dangerous especially during night time.

[rks]

If they implement the absurd speed limits on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway including 80/50/30 kmph at various locations, I cannot expect my average speed to exceed about 60 kmph. That means it would take 93 mins to cross the 93 km stretch instead of my present 50-52 mins. A cool 40 mins lost, just on the Expressway. Probably my drive time over the entire Pune-Mumbai route of ~170 kms would increase by at least 90 mins, from my present 2.5 hours to about 4 hours. No way I am going to pay Rs 118 as toll for the Expressway in that case. Would prefer to take the old Mumbai-Pune route, where I hope I can get away with speeding at least by evening (after 7-00 PM on Fridays) or in the mornings before 10-00 AM.

Train would be another alternative; Pune to Dadar is between 2.5 to 3 hrs on varous express trains. And with e-tickets, booking is no bother at all. But getting to and from the station at odd hours with laptop/mobile could be more risky.

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

what they need to do is
fence the highways on both sides to prevent animals from entering.
Then allocate the two wheelers to use the service road so as to make it safer for them.
Allocate one lane for the trucks or make 3 lanes based on speed.

And see to it that they are followed.

This in itself will make our highways a better place.

somebody please tell this to guys who sit in these meetings!!!

[2fast4u]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

somebody please tell this to guys who sit in these meetings!!!

u told na khallas why shake i agree head

[vikrantw1]

An interesting thing is that in the USA - they found that limiting top speeds did not impact accident rates in anyway
Also this whole concept of imposing speed limits is wacko. Speed limits are usually imposed based on an analysis of traffic movement on the roads - a top speed is determined on the basis of the 80th percentile ie the speed on which 80% of the cars/vehicles are moving on a certain road - naturally a four lane expressway would then have higher speed limits
Now what I would like to know is if our esteemed govt committee used some basis for this or pulled out thse numbers from their rear end - as they are wont to do

[Jaggu]

OT

Originally Posted by 2fast4u

u told na khallas why shake i agree head

errrrrrrrrrr i didnt quite understand you, i meant the commiteeeeeeeeeee members, that sit in the meeting which is going to decide the fate of highway travel

[appuchan]

Impact of speed limits on accidents is a difficult issue. In US its broken more often out of sheer frustration like having to drive a Porsche Carrera at 65 mph on a 100 mile straight empty road. Worsening road surface, widely varied driving practices, teenage/freaky driving etc also contributes there.

Autobahns in Germany are said to have lesser accident rate compared to "speed limited" freeways in the US. But again here the inner/fast lane is almost exclusively reserved for "high end sedans/coupes (read Mercs, Beemers and Italians)". If you have a low end car like Camry, you will be elbowed out easily by these mostly dark monsters.

But again, all of these has to be read alongwith the traffic density, quality of roads and ofcourse the driver attitude.

We here already have a big problem with point#3 above, worsening problem with point#1, and slow improvement in point#2. So overall its a big negative.
Here as of now, a speed limit will help only the cops who want to make some extra moolah. And if there is no proper tracking and larger fines repeat offencers, it does not work at all. Otherwise people here believe that once they are fined for overspeeding in a particular road, they are free to drive at any speed after that and can flash this "fine slip" if caught again!

[double]

Last time when i did bangalore chennai trip in GQ, At some point of time i just happened to see the speedo, ohhhh i was doing 125 kmph but with out any stress or strain.

If u force the people to do 50 kmph in GQ , certainly they will go the sleep or atleast I if i drive.
Even TVS parcel service A-class goods carrier vans are doing 50 kmph and one person known to me is working as driver in that and he used to tell stories about how difficult it is to drive slowly in highways. ( as per rule of the company whenever they cross 50kmph it will be recorded in the device mounted in the lorry/van and driver will be questioned for that)

So we expect the goverment to take the right decision.

my two cents.

[rks]

Originally Posted by mclaren1885

Instead of spending insane amounts of money buying patrol cars, speed guns, employing more people what they need to do is fence the highways on both sides to prevent animals from entering. Then allocate the two wheelers to use the service road so asto make it safer for them. Allocate one lane for the trucks or make 3 lanes based on speed. And see to it that they are followed. This in itself will make our highways a better place.

This is fine in principle, but in practice will be very difficult to implement. You are basically asking for expressway-like conditions on our highways, many of which run through villages/small towns; often villagers will have to make their cattle or sheep cross the road to enter/leave the grazing area. If you fence off the roads, you have to provide overpasses or underpasses, which is difficult enough. Even then you cannot expect villagers to walk long distances with their animals to reach these passes; more likely that they will simply breach the fencing at various points and cross the road. You will need an enormous security patrol to enforce this idea, as it is done on the 93-km long Mumbai-Pune Expressway (and even there I do occasionally see animals by the road side).

There may be shops on either side of the road that would be affected by the fencing. Private land may need to be confiscated, trees may need to be cut, etc. All of this would lead to huge legal headaches. Tree-cutting is not even desirable in my opinion, even for the purpose of providing better highways (at age 50, I am beginning to long for the good old days, say, 60's or earlier, when there was plenty of greenery and no pollution). And it is the poor who wield political clout, so the govt. cannot afford to offend them.

A separate lane for two-wheelers would be great from the point of view of those who own four-wheelers. But the two-wheeler owners will probably oppose the idea as it will restrict their movement. And lane discipline would be as difficult to implement as speed limits. We would need a huge number of patrol cars/cameras, etc. Even on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, with a separate dedicated security patrol, I see a fair number of locals near Lonawala illegally driiving around on their two-wheelers, sometimes right in front of the police.