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Old 25th June 2007, 15:49   #16
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Originally Posted by ram View Post
In the USA, they will fail you if you don't look over your shoulder, when pulling out into traffic, changing lanes or backing up.
Yup, thats what I've heard from my friends in the US as well. I find it very useful in everyday life whenever I'm coming into a "merging" traffic situation because there are always blind spots in the OSRVM so, looking over always helps.

And I'm not talking about coming to a dead halt (and causing a pile-up behind you!!!), looking over your shoulder & then proceeding , its mostly a quick glance over to corroborate if what you see in the OSRVM is complete.
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Old 25th June 2007, 15:51   #17
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I am surprised to hear that,in Singapore, you are failed because you looked over your shoulders

Last edited by DieselFan : 25th June 2007 at 15:52.
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Old 25th June 2007, 15:52   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vivek_pinkoo View Post
  • How much do you spend on repairs and maintenance?
None:
If one really spends zero on repairs and maintenance, may it be presumed that:
  • One has a terrible unmaintained car.

    or
  • One has a huge stockpile of unpaid(hot) spare parts;
  • One works on the car by oneself;

    or
  • One gets others (dad/wife/in-laws) to spend money and maintain the car?
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Old 25th June 2007, 16:00   #19
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Originally Posted by suman View Post
And I'm not talking about coming to a dead halt (and causing a pile-up behind you!!!)
In the US, if your car rear-ends another.
And another car rear-ends your car.
And another car rear-ends that car.
in other words a pile-up !,
...the last driver to hit the pile-up pays for everybody's damage.

By US law, the rear-ender is always guilty!

I have even heard (the extreme case) that if you back-up into another moving car's front end, that car's driver is liable to pay for all damage.

The law states that the onus of responsibility to maintain safe distance is always on the car following behind.

"But Your Honor, he stopped suddenly in the middle of the freeway at 65 mph" is no excuse!

You must expect the unexpected and maintain your distance!
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Old 25th June 2007, 16:02   #20
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Originally Posted by ram View Post
Just thinking.
  • How many km did you drive last year? On what quality of road? 15,000 KMS, City Roads mostly poth-holed!
  • How many km did you put on the odometer of the last car you sold? First car (Not too keen on selling it so soon)
  • How many accidents did you have in the last 3 years? 2 small accidents (1 while learning and the other one, was while waiting for my turn at the toll naka - A sumo banged the car from behind)
  • How much do you spend on repairs and maintenance? (650-1200 INR every six months on servicing.)
  • Would the world's topmost car-driving countries consider you among the best teachers of the driving-skill? (I can teach but not too sure if they would take me!!!)
May be offtopic - How many driving school instructors wear the seat belts, including the ones which are named SAFE motor training schools!
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Old 25th June 2007, 16:09   #21
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  • How many km did you drive last year? On what quality of road? 17000kms , mostly good roads.
  • How many km did you put on the odometer of the last car you sold? 72000kms
  • How many accidents did you have in the last 3 years? One
  • How much do you spend on repairs and maintenance? just the regular servicing costs
  • Would the world's topmost car-driving countries consider you among the best teachers of the driving-skill ? Yup

Last edited by faithless_1984 : 25th June 2007 at 16:11.
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Old 25th June 2007, 16:15   #22
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Originally Posted by DieselFan View Post
I am surprised to hear that,in Singapore, you are failed because you looked over your shoulders

could be hearsay .. cause i was looking over shoulder to reverse and a relative who came down said that during exams they insisted on using mirrors (internal and external) during exams
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Old 25th June 2007, 19:57   #23
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While majority of the blame for bad driving rests with the drivers, we do have a significant traffic problem in India due to "mixed" traffic.

We have:

1. pedestrians, bicycles and tricycles
2. Autorickshaws and other big three wheelers which probably will never exceed 50kmph.
3. Overloaded trucks that can only go at 30 to 40 kmph on the highway
4. Motorcycles that can go where the rider pleases.
5. Cars like Ambassadors that can do 80 kmph comfortably.
6. Modern cars where 100 kmph is the general norm.
7. Buses for whom no rules apply (some fly at 120kmph and some crawl at 40 kmph).

The unfortunate thing is: EVERYONE WANTS TO GO FIRST!

Pedestrians use the blacktop particularly when its muddy due to rains etc. to walk since there is no proper sidewalk. Bicycles definitely want a part of blacktop but they contend with pedestrians in case if they need to get off the road and on to the shoulder. Tricycles will never get off the road. There should be a bike/pedestrian/tricycle path (infrastructure).

Autorickshaws are never going to reach anywhere within a reasonable amount of time if they start obeying traffic rules and driving properly. A strict auto lane with barriers and even a stricter enforcement would go a long way atleast inside cities.

Motorcycles should have another lane next to the autos and the motorcycle should be taken away from the rider for a day or two for each violation! After 10 violations donate the bike to charity or something. This will come back to enforcement. May be we can send the Superintendent of Police to different places randomly to monitor the actions of venal policemen.

Now we have trucks, buses and cars. Technically, we should be able to get by two lanes in each directions if all the slower traffic would keep left to let the faster ones to pass the right. This is where I think the driver education will come in.

Going in the wrong direction on a four lane divided highway should get the driver atleast a couple of days in Jail. We all know if someone tries to do that in the West, they'll be dead in no time.

Now, there can be bad drivers everywhere. Left lane hogs in the US are not uncommon either - drivers staying on the left lane at speed limit when they can move to the right and let the faster traffic pass, and some purposely hog the left lane.

So, my solution is this. Given our present infrastructure, take it easy. It probably is going to add 5 or 10 minutes to one's commute, but its better to let whoever wants to go ahead to go ahead and go fast only when the coast is clear. We need to lobby for better infrastructure and driver education. But, as always, we human beings fear the stick, so there should be clean enforcement along with infrastructure development.

Those of you who know Muvattupuzha-Perumbavoor - Angamaly stretch in Kerala is beautifully marked for slower traffic to go on the left, and they generally do. Once in a while you see some auto chap encroaching on the right and everyone moves to the right some crossing even the center line!

My favorite gripe is this: Road signs are pathetically marked in India. I ended up going the wrongway in Madras last month and didn't realize it at all because the sign was all rusted. Actually, the traffic was quite light a couple of times in the morning, so I never even realized I was going the wrong way. I tried to do the same thing one evening and quickly realized I was swimming against the stream and turned around. I should've gotten a ticket, but never really did!

Most of all, our politicians need to educate their underlings. Have you ever seen the number of arches being put up welcoming the beloved CM/PM and what not? These underlings stick bills on the road and direction signs, or put up a big sign in front of the signs so no one can see them anyway. Perhaps, these things should be done first before driver education?

Last edited by THE-U- : 25th June 2007 at 19:59.
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Old 25th August 2007, 17:18   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ram View Post
If one really spends zero on repairs and maintenance, may it be presumed that:
  • One has a terrible unmaintained car.

    or
  • One has a huge stockpile of unpaid(hot) spare parts;
  • One works on the car by oneself;

    or
  • One gets others (dad/wife/in-laws) to spend money and maintain the car?
None of the above case. In fact I took maintenance cost out of any accident repair which was zero.

Yes off course I spent on regular service which was average 1000-1500 rs at every 5K.
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Old 25th August 2007, 20:43   #25
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Here it goes

Quote:
Originally Posted by ram View Post
Just thinking. Team-BHP could be an excellent forum to foster top in class safe driving habits.

How aware are you of what the traffic is like behind you?

Do you do a Head check or merely a Mirror check?
Do you drive by the book and take the trouble to look over your shoulder before attempting to change lanes, or are you lazy and rely only on the mirrors instead? (I've seen some of us even nonchalantly driving with the ORVMs folded)

The mirror can only say "no". It can't say "yes"
If you see something in the mirror that would delay you changing lanes, then the mirror is telling you, "no". If it looks all clear in the mirror, you still don't have a "yes" until you actually turn your head and look. This is what we were taught in California.

When you learn to drive with strict rules in a strict country,
Where the laws of the road are carefully written, regularly reviewed and updated and sincerely enforced by the highway police,
Where every citizen learns to drive as part of his minimum basic education at the age of 15.
In one of those lands that has been motorized ever since the car was invented, a country that couldn't survive its growing millions of cars in traffic, unless it enforced the strict discipline to go with it...

Then, you come out as a safer global-quality driver.

Do you maintain the two-second-rule distance behind the vehicle in front of you? (three-second distance in rainy weather) or do you tailgate the poor chap?

Do you underestimate the other driver’s potential for aggression and overestimate your potential to get away with bad road behaviour?

How can we improve the state of affairs back home here?
  • How many km did you drive last year? On what quality of road?
  • How many km did you put on the odometer of the last car you sold?
  • How many accidents did you have in the last 3 years?
  • How much do you spend on repairs and maintenance?
  • Would the world's topmost car-driving countries consider you among the best teachers of the driving-skill?
  • How many km did you drive last year? On what quality of road?
4 to 5000 KMs
  • How many km did you put on the odometer of the last car you sold?
20, 000 miles at least
  • How many accidents did you have in the last 3 years?
1
  • How much do you spend on repairs and maintenance?
Regular mtce mostly
  • Would the world's topmost car-driving countries consider you among the best teachers of the driving-skill?
Yup, most of the folks I know call me a safe driver. A van driver in US last time called me a defensive driver.

I frequently get suggestions to

not wait for pedestrians to clear but keep moving
don´t stop if the vehicle ahead stops, got through left/ right
Not wait for gaps in oncoming traffic while going across
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Old 25th August 2007, 22:01   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ram View Post
world's topmost car-driving countries

Well.. I went to NYC last month. I was driving in a rental car there. To my surprise, driving was a complete nightmare there. Nobody follows any rules there, honking, not respecting right-of-way, changing lanes without indication, it was all there. I felt like I was driving in Mumbai.

So, if heavy traffic can break-down world's topmost car-driving country, it not going to be easy for us.
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Old 25th August 2007, 23:12   #27
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So, if heavy traffic can break-down world's topmost car-driving country, it not going to be easy for us.
why is everyone under the impression that USA is the world's topmost car driving country????
if anything that title should goto Germany or one of them European countries!!
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Old 26th August 2007, 00:23   #28
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I agree.

Reflecting back on my American and European experiences, the following thoughts come to mind...

The freeways of the USA abounded with crummy pickup trucks, motorhomes and tasteless SUVs, bouncing along the freeways indisciplinedly in any lane that suited their fancy.
Other artifacts were: a fat physically unfit population, paunchy rural donuts-and-black-coffee highway cops with "I own my town" attitude, I could go on and on... The USA's so uncool.

But give me anytime, the finesse of Europe, the nimble, refined power-isn't-all spiders, berlinas, coupes and GTs, the discipline of the autobahnen, autoroutes, autosnelwege, motorvägen and autostrade, the unforgiving laws towards careless driving and towards ill-maintained cars, the polite cops and the friendly Italian signorinas.
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Old 26th August 2007, 02:05   #29
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vabs78 View Post
Well.. I went to NYC last month. I was driving in a rental car there. To my surprise, driving was a complete nightmare there. Nobody follows any rules there, honking, not respecting right-of-way, changing lanes without indication, it was all there. I felt like I was driving in Mumbai.

So, if heavy traffic can break-down world's topmost car-driving country, it not going to be easy for us.
hahaaha..I agree man, two weeks back I was driving in Queens, NY and the traffic was absolutely like bombay..slow moving traffic and lots of honking and lane cutting, bikers cutting through the cars....now these were SBK's..hahaha..I suddenly felt home; only thing lacking was rickshaw...

And I do agree with Cheap_deal, USA drivers aren't necessarily the best, infact in Philadelphia, traffic is again nuts with people switching lanes w/o indicators, few instances of jumping signals etc. I drove in Switzerland 2 years back and oh boy, the traffic there was so damn disciplined, its unbelievable !
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Old 26th August 2007, 10:18   #30
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All this is proof towards self-discipline is the best discipline.
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