[Turrrb0]

Originally Posted by jeevmenon

Thanks Arun Rahul Rahul Sheel. Insightful. I feel my Duster at home is much relaxed downhill than the swift hatchback. Does this engine braking vary from car to car? Probably yes. Engine dependent, diesel vs petrol? Torque, power related? This will help to ensure we hire the correct vehicle to be more comfortable. I know people drive all kinds of vehicles on such terrains but just to be more sure and relaxed.

In my opinion, I feel this has to do more with the gear ratios than with the type of car, fuel type, etc..

The lower the gear ratio, the better the effect of engine breaking and lower speed down the slope.

[sibi6613]

Hi everyone! I hope this is the right thread for this. On our way back from Hogenakkal, I saw these new signals installed all along the way. They were very different with blue, red and white lights, all flashing. I had no clue what those were meant to convey the drivers. If anyone could shed some light on this (pun intended), it'd be amazing!

https://youtu.be/F-hYM8JoP-k

[hserus]

Originally Posted by sibi6613

Hi everyone! I hope this is the right thread for this. On our way back from Hogenakkal, I saw these new signals installed all along the way. They were very different with blue, red and white lights, all flashing. I had no clue what those were meant to convey the drivers. If anyone could shed some light on this (pun intended), it'd be amazing!

These are placed just before barricades or intersections where other roads merge onto the highway, so that you see the lights from afar and slow down instead of crashing into the barricade, or into some car merging into the highway.

[sibi6613]

Originally Posted by hserus

These are placed just before barricades or intersections where other roads merge onto the highway, so that you see the lights from afar and slow down instead of crashing into the barricade, or into some car merging into the highway.

Oh! Thanks!

But I have noticed that they're not the same at every intersection. Sometimes its lesser of those flashy lights and sometimes more.

[BenjiRoss]

The barricades placed at the intersections on highways have apparently reduced the number of accidents at these intersections. I have seen many of them battered and bruised though!
Here is one such barricade that made a trucker struggle. Thankfully they are mobile and a traffic cop just pushed it away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcYlC3Ok-no

What are your thoughts on these barricades on the highways. They are frustrating and cause traffic jams on some busy highways, but when you're entering the highway, it certainly makes it easier and safer.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

What are your thoughts on these barricades on the highways. They are frustrating and cause traffic jams on some busy highways, but when you're entering the highway, it certainly makes it easier and safer.

I find them useful as long as they are painted with proper reflective paint.

Unfortunately they are sometimes backed with ad hoc barriers like steel drums filled with rocks. And quite often they lack reflective paint so that they aren't visible all that far away at night. I missed one such barrier by a whisker when doing some early morning driving a few months back.

[BenjiRoss]

Originally Posted by hserus

I find them useful as long as they are painted with proper reflective paint.

People say they have decreased accidents at these junctions, so they must be worth it.
Of course, there are some impatient drivers who see cars slow at these junctions and attempt some rash overtaking! These incidents have happened on the odd occasion and I always check my rearview mirror when I slow down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiMcyTrudJM

[h3mnzu]

An update to my thread #288 on page 20 (Hill Driving Techniques & Roads in Uttarakhand)

The All-Weather Road Project (Char Dham Mahamarg) in Uttarakhand has seen insurmountable delays, mostly due to the National Green Tribunal stepping in to avoid environmental degradation to the forests. What's interesting is that the Indian Railways have completed the survey phase for laying tracks and are in plans to also connect Rishikesh-Karnprayag and finally into a completely new route to atleast two of the four holy pilgrimage routes. Both these roads and railways projects are being made with latest know how and implementation of best practices, some being so novel as to cause delays with contractors and work-staff who are used to scrape off mountains with a lone JCB earthmover.

As a consequence, the current status of roads in the upper hill regions in Uttarakhand are a complete mess of dust debris and loose pointed shards of rocks and rubble, some stretches capable of raising dust clouds for miles. This makes the drive extremely unpleasant, yet the faith of the Pilgrims somehow keeps the spirit up and lets them complete their trip.

Safety wise, it would be a disaster to drive upto any of the four chota char dhams, namely Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath in the following monsoon months of July-October of 2019. Avoid your trips for pilgrimage or nature tours altogether until atleast 90% of work is proven completed.

Keep your trips short, with ample time to return back. I would suggest you add atleast 2 spare days to any trip beyond Chakrata, Dharasu, Joshimath and beyond Agastmuni (each takes you to one pilgrimage site).

On a positive note, till the All Weather Road Project sees light of the day in Uttarakhand (my guess is beyond year 2023 as per technical reports and project progress), until then we shall reward ourselves with the magical Almora, Pithoragarh and Munsiyari routes. They are well maintained and in top notch condition (single lane only).

I hope we can cross into Nepal some day since the route is well defined and is much better alternative to those who do cross-country drives to Europe. It does need more than permits to dare this, and I guess tour guides can provide us a list of hurdles in bureaucratic mechanism to start expeditions into Nepal.

So, Almora region should be the de-facto alternative destination until the four-laning work continues. And there are ways to go past Almora and explore the region without taking Nainital route, which has it's own parking woes and diversions. Khatima-Pithoragarh is one such scenic drive.

[SR-71]

Originally Posted by BenjiRoss

They are frustrating and cause traffic jams on some busy highways, but when you're entering the highway, it certainly makes it easier and safer.

In theory they are useful. It is placed in most intersection in divided highways in TN. However in practice they seem to do more harm than good. If you have driven in the divided highways in TN at the end of a long weekend or a holiday season you will see how messy it becomes at these dividers with all the morons crowding at the narrow mouth making life difficult for everyone. Then there are these dimwits who just think its cool to cut you and enter the divider mouth and zigzag his way through. Finally they are a huge hazard when placed at a blind turn. They just pop at you out of nowhere. Same is the case with toppled dividers. The last 2 points when it happens in the nigh poses a much higher risk to the road user. These dividers should be placed with adequate warning signs and should be patrolled else to really make them useful. While the warning signals (as seen in a video a few posts up) are there in the Hosur - Salem stretch, it needs to be the norm everywhere.

[BenjiRoss]

I wish the casual workers on the highway could be given safer work conditions. The ones who clean the road and also maintain the median greenery work with vehicles zipping around them at over 100 kmph. They barely use any warning cones or any warning signs. I wonder how many get injured or killed every year.

https://youtu.be/kd4nE_hF_J0

[GladRagu]

As we have more maniacs than sane people behind the wheels, these unscientific barricades seems a necessity but certainly this isn't the way to do it. Seeing the poor mangled condition of these heavy barricades, i assume these just helped to increase the accident count.

A pedestrian or villager in bike may feel safe to pass behind these barricades in a relaxed manner but may end up hit badly by the very same structures thrown on them by a speeding/unsuspecting vehicle. You can never stop those mad behind wheels by these barricades, these are grave hazards to everybody.

Have any of you noticed a huge stone being placed near the edge of those barriers(safety measure for the barricades from being hit or to stop them from falling down) reducing the already tight space to pass through them and not to mention our vulnerable tyres getting scared of those stones.

Great that tyres can be saved by tyres here but can't guarantee the same for the car.

https://youtu.be/rk5EHtpUNSk

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/69568341.cms

Sadly, this petition didn't receive much attention

https://www.change.org/p/tamil-nadu-...ed-in-highways

[gkrishk]

Intersections across 4-lane highways and the subsequent barricades meant to stop or slow down the fast vehicles on the highway to allow local traffic from the smaller cross road have become commoner over the past few years.
This is because of ribbon development:

[url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_development"[/URL]

A highway is usually built away from built up urban areas but over a period of time people put up houses, shops and businesses along the highway and soon you have vehicles, people, schoolchildren etc alongside the highway.

Highways should be limited-access or controlled access to reduce accidents and new constructions be restricted close to them.

[himanshumor]

Let us take a pledge to drive safe from 2021 onwards!

This thread is a light-headed way of reminding us about driving safe because it is the most important thing while driving, even more important than being inside a safe car.
Essence of this blog has been captured in below video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdZhHbthZVY

Safe driving has below two important aspects:
1. Safely driving any machine
2. Driving a safe machine
My viewpoint on point number 2 is simple
Let us now judge anyone for them buying a car which apparently seems unsafe to others because safety is an absolute relative term. And I completely agree with the viewpoint shared by fellow bhpian in this post below
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-...rn-safety.html (How important is our concern for safety?)
This post is all about Point number 1 and I want to list fundamental points about safe driving below that many of us may or may not already be following:

1. Wear Seat Belts:
Seat belts are important for all seats inside the car and not just front seats.
For someone sitting in the 3rd row of an Innova, the seat belts are equally critical as it is for the one driving the Innova.
As infants cannot fit properly in the seat-seatbelt arrangement, we are supposed to use child seats mounted properly in ISO fix mounts of cars. For cars lacking ISOFIX mounts, some equivalent modifications can surely be done to fix the child seats properly

2. Don't Drink & Drive:
I will not go into statistical data to tell how many drink and drive accidents are reported in India because we all know that. Do I need to mention why should we not drink and drive? No, I do not think it is worth mentioning because we all know this for obvious reasons. But I do want to mention what comes under drink and drive
What’s not allowed:
1. Any drink with alcohol in it.
What’s allowed:
1. Banana, Strawberry, Apple shakes & smoothies.
2. Cheeku, Badam shakes
3. Coffee- hot & cold.
4. Jaljeera- sweet and salty.
5. Fanta Float.
6. Fruit punch.
7. Lemonade- sweet,salty,mix(sweet+salty).
8. Roohafza/Sharbat-E-Azam
And the list goes on for non-alcoholic drinks

The idea of this point is only to mention that alcohol is just one thing and we can easily do away with it while driving.

3. Control the obsession to pop-out of sunroof in a moving car
Firstly, it is very difficult to stand out of the sunroof, one needs to stand on the front two seats to pop-out of the sunroof which is very inconvenient.
What is a sunroof?
It is just a window in the roof of a car just like the windows in car doors.
Then why the obsession to get your head out of a sunroof.
How dangerous can this be in case of an accident while you are standing in the sunroof of a moving car? Let’s not imagine and just make sure we do not do this.

4. Careful usage of High Beam
High beam should be used for signaling cars in front of my intention to overtake or watching the extended road ahead while on lonely highway stretches.
High beam should never be used continuously when there is incoming traffic as it will hamper the vision of oncoming drivers.
I see a lot of folks driving their Hector/Fortuner/Seltos/etc. with lights on Auto mode and their High Beam lights turn ON even when there is low light during cloudy weather.
Such folks do blind incoming traffic even in daylight as those LEDs are powerful if seen from the front even in the daytime.

5. Drive within the Speed limit (at least ethical limit if not official limit)
Let us make sure we drive at speeds where we can control our car in case of emergency braking when some unexpected incoming person/car/bike/animal comes in front out of nowhere or braking due to other’s mistakes.
On some roads, the speed limit is impractically low and can’t be followed when we have to drive based on traffic and road conditions. In such cases, let us follow the ethical limit.
By Ethical limit, I mean the practical limit which we as a car driver should be able to identify that will keep our car as well as other car/bike/vehicles safe.
As there are Digital speed cameras installed at many places now, let us follow the limit strictly on those roads to avoid wasting money on e-challans.

6. Traffic Lights
Ideally:
Green means Go
RED means STOP
Orange means CAUTION that light is about to end
Practically:
GREEN means GO with your eyes acting as a 180-degree camera to continuously check if others are jumping their lights to come in your way or not
RED means STOP carefully knowing when people usually stop at this red light.
There are cases when people do not stop at all on RED lights, lets us make sure that cars from behind to not hit us because they do not consider the RED light at all.
ORANGE means noting sometimes, just monitor others if they are following lights or completely ignoring lights.

7. Driving in Fog
Make sure that you can see what is ahead of you and others can see your car/vehicle as well
How will you see others?
Always drive slowly where the definition of SLOWLY is to drive at a pace when you can see what is ahead of you.
How will others see you?
Use front and rear fog lights of your car (if your car has them) or else turn on headlights with blinkers at least.

8. Maintain a safe distance from vehicles ahead of you
Keeping distance from vehicles in front always gives you time to react properly in case of emergency braking.
At speeds above 100, this distance should be a minimum 3 or 4 cars length between you and the vehicle ahead of you.
At speeds of around 50, this distance should be a minimum of one car length.

9. Using Mobile phones while driving
Never indulge yourself in long discussions/conversations/arguments while driving as it distracts the mind from the traffic situation ahead.
And when we must answer phone calls while being behind the wheel, please ensure that mobile is connected to Bluetooth of the car music system.
Even if the car music system does not have Bluetooth, there are plenty of aftermarket Bluetooth devices that get paired to mobile and give output in-car speakers. TANTRA Fluke PRO Bluetooth Receiver 4.1 Bluetooth Kit is one such example that has worked flawlessly for my i20 Magna 2018 model which had a music system without Bluetooth.

10. Do not mix Rajma+Rice+Lassi with driving (Total Pun intended)
Rajma Rice with Lassi has been an intoxicating lunch/dinner for me always and I feel one should take rest of at least one out between driving and Rajma-Rice-Lassi session.

Thank you all for reading this blog. I have listed the very basic 10 points but please do add further points in addition to these.

[AZT]

Good thread. I would like to add 11. As far as possible avoid night driving when planning inter city road trips

[Kaniamluap]

Hi fellow BHp'ians,

I have planned an upcoming road trip in my brand new Aspire Petrol-BS6 1.2. I have done around 1k KM till now, and plan and fully breaking in the engine (around 1.5K km, according to the manual) and getting the first oil change done before i start. The planned route is as follows covering around 1700 kms over 7 days -

Chennai - Bangalore - Mysore - Bandipur - Ooty - kotagiri - connor - Yercaud - Chennai

I have a couple of queries on my cars capabilities.

1. We are 4 adults, 1 kid, and 2 toddlers, totalling around 375 kg (with luggage). Will the car face difficulties climbing the ghat roads with this setup?

2. The payload of the car seems to be around 450 kg. I would like to know if i need to reduce weight of luggage and other stuffs to climb.

3. How much power will i be losing if i am using the AC while climbing the mountains.

Would really love if you can share long drive experiences with Aspire Petrol. While the Aspire diesel engine is a very potent one, i am a bit skeptical about the Petrol engine on ghat roads, pulling a fully loaded car. Tios and tricks are always welcome

Disclaimer -

1. While my car is new, i do have a pretty decent driving experience (5 years running)

2. Will be sharing my experience in a separate travel log.

Thanks Much