[SR-71]

Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI

A recent harrowing experience was along the undivided Coimbatore Palakkad stretch, where I wished for some twisties. The straights constantly had an oncoming vehicle in my lane turning into a blinking contest, not that I had any room to move aside.

That L&T bypass stretch is a nightmare, more so in the night. I am a long term user of that stretch, atleast once in two months and have been doing it for more than a decade now. The road has steep drops on both sides with no embankments in many places. Its worse specially near the Podanur ROR bridge. To top it you have a lot of Schumacher(s) racing down at you with no regard for oncoming traffic. The worst time to cross it is during twilight when the lighting is poor and between 9PM and midnight when you have an onslaught of Volvo buses bearing down on you, lit to kingdom come and no regards for fellow road users. 14 years on am still trying to get used to that stretch. The only thing I have seen change is the increase in toll fee, I don't even know what am paying toll for in that stretch (pun intended)...

[kinetic]

Do Kerala roads have more CCTV and dashcam-equipped cars, or do a disproportionate number of Kerala drivers not care about life and limb when driving?

[Bibendum90949]

Originally Posted by cheeku

a private bus starts an overtaking move seeing the large gap in front. I knew this would end bad if I kept at my speed and immediately braked to a complete halt and moved as much to the left as possible.

There was hardly any space on the left or right as the bridge was narrow and there was decent paced traffic on the opposite lane.


In a situation like this, be it any kind of defensive driving, I couldn't fathom what else could have been done, maybe maintain lesser distance with the car in front so that the bus doesn't even get a chance to perform that overtake by moving to our lane, but we all know that hardly can stop the famed bus drivers

I've lost count of the number of times where I faced similar situations. As you rightly said, it always pays to slow down or even stop after giving the maniac as much room as possible.

Years ago, I had a very close shave in the night on a two lane KL highway where a TN SRTC bus completed an overtaking maneuver at breakneck speed, inches away from my front bumper. This is after me slowing down, moving to the farthest left possible and almost coming to a stop after seeing the idiot coming right at me. Those were the days I didn't have the dashcam. Had it been today, I would've ensured he faced the music, big time.

Sadly, on our roads one has to encounter such incidents almost every other day.