[Delta Wing]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

People who talk of stuff, or of reacting in any physical way, always assume that they would be the winner of any such encounter. They might have "stuff:" the other guy might have stuff too.

Couldn't agree more. The road is a great leveller where everyone feels equal or better than all the others on the road with a great sense of entitlement. Any accident situation is a nucleus on which the rage acts as fuel. Whose fault it may be can be quickly buried as a 'rage response' takes over, and worse, if a mob gathers. The rage always brings all its cousin biases and prejudices which completely changes the variables feeding a situation, with ego distorting views. In 20 years of driving, the only thing i have seen diffuse situations is to not get enraged and confrontational and always be reasonable. When i drive in traffic or at highway speed on open roads these days, and see vehicles converging in a dense zone, i repeat to myself, 'don't hit anyone, don't get hit by anyone' and behave appropriately. An incident or accident may happen in a few seconds, but the aftermath costs may impact for life. Humans have poor cognition and responses for exponential threats, so best never to depend on those responses to defend. Recall a nice movie called 'crash' circa 2005-06 which shows conflicts which spiral out of the ordinary.

[Anonymous guy]

Originally Posted by Exhaust_Note

.
With this attitude, it is only a matter of time before he crashes or gets involved in an ugly road rage situation. All all this was completely unprovoked, 10 Am in the morning with no need to hurry.

Since you tried to explain him calmly, it's his fault he didn't listen. Props to you for being patient in such situations where many of us would have lost out patience. He will only learn when he faces the consequences of his actions. Though quite disheartening hearing his words, I hope he learns the consequences early before someone innocent suffers due to him. I do not hope this happens to him but he will have to face the storm (if you get what I mean) to understand what you were trying to say to him.

[PB65]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

People who talk of stuff, or of reacting in any physical way, always assume that they would be the winner of any such encounter. They might have "stuff:" the other guy might have stuff too. They might be very fit and muscular: the other guy might spend every day at the gym. The other guy is probably a regular at this kind of encounter too.

Just thinking out loud. Personally, I'm a no-muscle wimp!

Well that's why I said the golden rule is to always avoid such a situation. But the recent uptick in such cases, including the recent ones from Gurgaon, when one is at an isolated place at night with family, and there's no place to run away, are the ones when you really wish you had something. It's practically your only chance.

As they said in some movie, "Gandhi har jagah nahi chalta."

It's just like that packet of eno in your house. You don't and shouldn't need it in the first place, but let come the situation, you really wish you had one sachet atleast.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by sameer_vwagner

The biggest takeaway for me is that these "Police"; "Navy"; "Army" stickers and plates are used by bullies and the fact that they are very easily available in the market is something that the police need to come down heavily on.

Even better would be to completely outlaw the usage of any such sticker, even for people who are actually working as policemen, lawyer, MLA, judge or in the government. What is the purpose of such stickers apart from trying to act privileged? Being with the police doesn't give any special rights to a driver. Official police cars are already marked. When off duty, a policeman is just like a regular citizen. All stickers on cars with government markings need to be outlawed as well. We never see anything like that in developed countries. In fact, most official vehicles should be taken away. You see judges and MPs driving themselves and using the metro abroad.

[glovins2004]

Build yourself in such away that the moment he looks into your eyes, he should politely turn back and mind only his business. I'm not saying to get physical, just a safety measure and it's healthy too.

[luvDriving]

Well I had an mild incident last week.

I was driving my daughter to school around 07.20 am. A school bus driver came up the wrong side causing a small traffic jam.

The Ertiga driver in front of me had a few words exchanged with the bus driver. I had no intention of engaging but as I was driving across the bus, instead of stopping and allowing me to go on, he decided to keep creeping on. I merely said to him - what kind of idiot are you to come on the wrong side driving a school bus.

I dont know what snapped inside him but he let loose a barrage of cuss words at me. I was shocked and worrying about my daughter, I kept driving on. This trend has now become very common in Pune - drive on the wrong side and glare or cuss at the people who are following traffic rules.

On a side note, when we reached school, my daughter before alighting said to me - baba take a deep breath and calm down before you go back. Dont engage with any more such fools.

[Marshall]

Originally Posted by Exhaust_Note

.

As the saying goes, common sense is not common. Take care and stay safe.

[Exhaust_Note]

Originally Posted by luvDriving

Well I had an mild incident last week.

I was driving my daughter to school around 07.20 am. A school bus driver came up the wrong side causing a small traffic jam.

…..

School buses are a nuisance most of the time. It is probably due to the fact that powerful people run the nexus and contracts are awarded to near and dear ones.

Hats off to your daughter and your parenting to have the level of maturity

Regards,
Saurab

[piiyush21]

With the increasing incidents of road rage in India and the incidents escalating from a verbal spat to rowdies going all out on the other drivers, I feel that we as drivers should also have some kind of defence mechanism so that in case the other driver tries to force you out of the car or in any case tries to do any kind of physical harm, we can save ourselves till the emergency services arive.

I suggest that we can keep pepper spray or something similar which can be used if someone tries to force you out of the car or engage physically.

Suggest any other methods which can be used?

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by luvDriving

On a side note, when we reached school, my daughter before alighting said to me - baba take a deep breath and calm down before you go back. Dont engage with any more such fools.

What a wonderful youngster! Please tell her that she has made me more optimistic for the future generations.

[luvDriving]

Originally Posted by Exhaust_Note

Hats off to your daughter and your parenting to have the level of maturity

Regards,
Saurab

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

What a wonderful youngster! Please tell her that she has made me more optimistic for the future generations.

Thank you for your kind words. Kids do sometimes surprise us (pleasantly) with their maturity.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by luvDriving

On a side note, when we reached school, my daughter before alighting said to me - baba take a deep breath and calm down before you go back. Dont engage with any more such fools.

Your daughter is quite practical. And realistically, none of us have the right to be vigilantes anyhow - so it is not ours to question wrong-doers. If the situation escalates, some blame will get pinned on us if proven that we had initiated an argument, never mind who was in the wrong in the first place...

But lest we forget - Dharmo rakshati, rakshitaha. If we don't take some steps to uphold what is right and to get the traffic rule violators punished by the appropriate authorities, they will one day become the death of us. It is a "must" today for each of us to have a dashcam with a timestamp, latitude/longitude, speed etc. on record, so that we can not only prove our innocence when needed but we can also tweet video snippets of traffic violations to concerned authorities. The authorities will be happy to levy fines on them, the violators will learn a lesson and we will have a safer society to that extent - one incident at a time.

[luvDriving]

Originally Posted by locusjag

Your daughter is quite practical. And realistically, none of us have the right to be vigilantes anyhow
But lest we forget - Dharmo rakshati, rakshitaha.

Thanks for your comment. You are right of course. I had no intention of engaging but what got my goat was the fact that the bus kept on moving even though I was going through the small space left on its side.

Unfortunately I did not have a dashcam on this car. Even otherwise I doubt that would have made any difference. Today I saw the same bus driving the same way (wrong side) followed by two and three wheelers.

[Ays7]

Originally Posted by luvDriving

Thanks for your comment. You are right of course. I had no intention of engaging but what got my goat was the fact that the bus kept on moving even though I was going through the small space left on its side.

Unfortunately I did not have a dashcam on this car. Even otherwise I doubt that would have made any difference. Today I saw the same bus driving the same way (wrong side) followed by two and three wheelers.

I did face this situation once, a bus driver, with bus full of kids cut me off very rashly once. It left me enraged but I did not engage with him at that time. What I did was, I saw the bus number and the school that bus belonged to. I then wrote a strongly worded email to the Principal of the school, pointing out the actions of the driver, and how he was endangering lives. I asked the school to take strict action against the driver, failing which I would activate my Social media contacts against the school and get the Parents involved.

I did get an acknowledgement from the school, a day later I got a call asking for more details, the route, the time, in order to identify the driver. They told me they are actively looking into the matter and will get back to me.

Finally I got a call after 4-5 days and I was informed that the driver has been identified, and suitably reprimanded and that they will take all steps to ensure that all their drivers will be given refresher courses on passive driving. I thanked them for the reply and that was it.

Mind you, I am an advocate and being proficient in passive-aggressive communication is my bread and butter, and I emailed them from my professional Id. I have a feeling that might have been a factor in eliciting the above response from them.

I do understand your feeling and I doff my hat to you and your daughter for not engaging with the driver and keeping your calm. De-escalating such a situation and avoiding such situation is increasingly becoming a lost art.

[aayusht]

Originally Posted by locusjag

we can also tweet video snippets of traffic violations to concerned authorities. The authorities will be happy to levy fines on them, the violators will learn a lesson and we will have a safer society to that extent - one incident at a time.

Hi Locusjag, would you know how this works?
Twice in the recent past, my wife & I have approached the Gurgaon traffic police with dashcam evidence of rule breakers on the road. While nothing had happened to us or our car when we approached the police & our intention to approach the traffic police was to hand them video evidence in the hopes that there would be some punitive measures leading to better road etiquettes over a period of time. However the response we got from traffic police - "We only rely on our own video or photo evidence" (their own cameras).