[prasadee]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Believe it or not, a Volvo cannot do 150kmph. They max out at 120kmph or so. You would find a lot of people claiming to have seen or felt a Volvo whizzing past at 150 or 180, but that's just claims akin to eye-witnesses claiming to have seen a vehicle hitting something at 100kmph while not present inside the vehicle.

Truckers override the programmed limit all the time, all over the world. Not saying it is right/legal, but they do.
Workaround for Volvo speed limit override -
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/44..._override.html

Originally Posted by avira_tk

People go home for a vacation and you want them to start a few hours early from home?

Yes of course. One person's vacation cannot be at the cost of another person's life. It is not socialism, it is social science. Live and let others live. If the speed limit is unscientific, truckers and bus operators should lobby to increase the speed limit, not just rig their buses to speed, and put lives of the public at risk.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by wildsdi5530

Agreed that offences should be punished severely, but I'm sure that none of the people in this forum adhere to the 40kmph city and 70kmph highway limits.

+1

Originally Posted by Daewood

People advocating for 150KMPH in Indian roads..that too in Team-Bhp where the usual trend in most of the discussions is for safe and sensible driving.

Let's not digress from the topic here. And driving fast doesn't mean unsafe/rash driving.

Originally Posted by Daewood

The Bus was a multi axle Kallada Travels and the road it happened is the same one being discussed here, NH 47, and the time of the incident was 1.30 am.

Correction. The road is not the same. The Kallada crashed onto a building at a place called Uthukulli near Tirupur in TN. It was not NH-47, but a 2-laned state highway. This stretch is devoid of any traffic late in the night. Yes, totally deserted. The bus that was fined 1.24L was cruising on a 4-laned stretch of NH-47 inside Kerala.

Originally Posted by Imran Ahmad Ali

... " Ruling that the government should ensure the governors are fit for speed limiting commercial vehicle " . Ensuring is the word I am emphasising on , it's a lapse In the system that the state governments not doing anything about .
I am pretty happy the way things are done here . They are pretty thorough in what I've seen. Not an extra buck for anything .

Speed governors are fitted when the vehicle is taken for registration/fitness test. What happens after that is anybody's guess. Great to know that things are better in your area.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by Daewood

People advocating for 150KMPH in Indian roads..that too in Team-Bhp where the usual trend in most of the discussions is for safe and sensible driving.
BTW this is from today's newspaper. http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...?homepage=true The Bus was a multi axle Kallada Travels and the road it happened is the same one being discussed here, NH 47, and the time of the incident was 1.30 am.

The norm is safe and sensible and I am sure you have seen people discussing speeds above 150kmph and justifying it saying that the roads were deserted. The stretch being discussed is in Kerala and with a town every 2km on NH47 these buses need to make up time. I was in two buses that met with an accident, one was at a speed of around 50 when the driver tried to overtake on a curve and ended up ramming into a tree. The other was in the middle of a small town where the bus was hit by a JCB, both vehicles swerved right at the same time. Recklessness was the cause in the first case and the second was unavoidable.

The details of the accident at Tirupur is not clear, I wouldn't be surprised if some creep took a U turn without checking first.

Originally Posted by prasadee

Yes of course. One person's vacation cannot be at the cost of another person's life. It is not socialism, it is social science. Live and let others live. If the speed limit is unscientific, truckers and bus operators should lobby to increase the speed limit, not just rig their buses to speed, and put lives of the public at risk.

A bus that does 70 will take 17 hours to reach central Kerala where NH 47 does not exist,the last time that happened, I got to spend about 24 hrs at home for 1000 bucks. How many of those who support these speed limits have driven above 50kmph in any road other the NH in Kerala, you were breaking the law. Those taking the moral high ground, keep in mind this fund raising drive (not law enforcement as some misguided folks seem to think )is to pay Onam bonuses to the government employees, if that isn't conflict of interest according to you, then I guess anything goes.

The public could also do a favour by realizing that the NH is not for pedestrians and they don't have right of way when they are crossing the lanes.

[honeybee]

I am sorry to see people justifying the insane speeds for reasons such as getting late for work. Agreed, the accident rates may be low, but the more we encourage such outrageous practices, the more the accident rates will climb. And no matter how low the accident rate is, whenever there's an accident, someone is going to lose his/her life or limbs, and they sure as hell aren't going to give a damn about your accident rates and statistical figures to justify removal of speed limits.

I say this is a great move, and more enforcement should happen. Precisely because people will cheat by putting stickers instead of putting speed governors. If your vehicle has a speed governor and it's functioning, there's no way you would be caught overspeeding at such insane speeds.

For those who advocate abolishing the speed limits or cutting slack to the poor bus drivers and their companies and their passengers, how about petitioning the government or the courts to get the speed limits increased?

At least those babus who take these decisions have to go by some facts and figures, and have to account for the safety of the people at large. We on the other hand want to nurture our egos and highspeed cars and urgency to reach everywhere before everyone else - even though it may be the pearly gates instead of our home/office.

[crdi]

Whether this action is fair or unfair is subject to individual opinion especially as all heavy commercial vehicles plying on the roads of kerala are supposed to have their speeds electronically regulated to 60Kph! and every average road user of kerala will be well aware that even the govt. Owned public transport services are not compliant with this. Two hoots to the corrupt RTO officers who just want to see a plastic box which says speed governor somewhere in such vehicles when they are produced for registration and fitness. Such vehicles are the biggest bullies on our roads and i am happy that at least one of them is penalized even as a publicity stunt. Heavy commercial vehicles are held up for hours at interstate borders and it would not take the RTO @#%$$# who are also stationed there even 5 mins to check whether these dirt covered vehicles have working tail/brake lamps or indicators or if their head lamps are street legal. NO such thing can be expected anytime even in the distant future of our corrupt country. The jack ass enforcers of our country think that the only enforcing they have to do is helmets for bikers and seat belts and speed limits for private cars and some tax stuff for commercial vehicles. Even though i personally feel happy that at least one bully got caught, this much publicised volvo incident can only be considered as a one off publicity stunt. I regularly see these heavy vehicles and govt owned vehicles of all sorts breaching their speed limits by a large margin ( you know when you are travelling within the speed limit ) and never heard of any being fined for over speeding apart from pvt cars.

[pganapathy]

I know a guy who used to drive a Volvo bus in south Africa in the late 90's early 2000's and just as a test he pushed the bus. Got it up to 180 and bus was super stable and he probably could have pushed it more but backed off for fear of a fine. 150 easy on these buses

[mazda4life]

I think any speed of a big vehicle above 100 KMPH is dangerous , slightly off topic , might be a small app/ black box would be a good solution to look at the speed trends over stretches of road.The technology would not be very complex in my opinion.
But it will give a good insight into the driving patterns of overnight bus drivers and there can be positive interventions both by law and the service provider.

[swiftnfurious]

Originally Posted by devansn

...I think Volvos can do. I have seen them doing 120ish speeds.

Originally Posted by avira_tk

A multi axle volvo can easily push 170 plus when empty, my friend(in a Cruze) had a tough time trying to overtake one of these on the way to Bangalore. 150 is certainly possible on a straight empty stretch, wherever it is on NH 47...

Originally Posted by tharian

I really don't think a Volvo double-axle can do 150kmh or 170kmh. They do a indicated 130-140, but 150 and above. is a bit hard to believe...

Originally Posted by wildsdi5530

I remember a Volvo Multi Axle bus keeping up with me upto a speedo indicated 150kmh. Roads in south TN are such that you can average 120-130kmh...

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

I remember for sure that the B7R has an electronically limited speed of 104kph or 65mph. This shows as 120 kph on the speedo. Not sure what it is on the B9R/9400XL but I don't think it'll be significantly more than that.

Originally Posted by narendra_urs

Cruze can easily breeze past anything doing the speed that you've mentioned. Anyways, even a multi-axle Volvo are tuned to do a top speed of about 135 kmph.

Originally Posted by silversteed

...
Let me make a few things clear:
Believe it or not, a Volvo cannot do 150kmph. They max out at 120kmph or so. You would find a lot of people claiming to have seen or felt a Volvo whizzing past at 150 or 180, but that's just claims akin to eye-witnesses claiming to have seen a vehicle hitting something at 100kmph while not present inside the vehicle...

4 months back, I was travelling from Kanjirappally to Chennai by Kallada Multi Axle (9700 or something I guess) and I had the opportunity to be in the navigator seat for almost an hour.

The speedo marking, as far as I remember is set at a max of 125 or 130 kmph !! And the max the driver (could) hit was 118 kmph or so (by the speedo marking).

I am NOT really sure of the other claims here. I should have tried the GPS way to be sure of the speeds!

I am also NOT sure whether some other (model) multi axles can do those speeds above what I have seen.

While I appreciate the moves to bring down over-speeding, high power bulbs, extra lights etc, I feel irritated that this is majorly happening in Kerala ONLY! While as a law abiding citizen I suffer, other morons will have a field day with those blinding lights & stupid driving mannerisms.

Also rather than fining the vehicles on empty stretch, high time the police focus on those killer private buses who make life difficult inside the city or undivided 2-lanes.

Off-Topic: And for the "Kitni deti hai" junta, the multi axle Volvo's MID kept on switching between 2 & 3 kmpl !!

[deathwalkr]

Speed is seldom the reason for accidents. Carelessness, lack of proper roads, ignorance of rules and road sense, failure to think a few steps ahead so many factors contribute to accidents. But since most of the other factors are found lacking, speed becomes the culprit . I wish we had all the other factors in effect out here...driving would be such a joy.

But a bus/truck at 150kmph is a scary thought indeed. What would be the stopping distance for something that heavy?

And really wish we had different speed limits for different times...80kmph during working hours, slightly relaxed after that and say a reasonable 100-120kmph at late night for cars.

I feel like an idiot driving at 70kmph on empty roads at 1AM :(

[turbo_delight]

Originally Posted by avira_tk

A bus that does 70 will take 17 hours to reach central Kerala where NH 47 does not exist,the last time that happened, I got to spend about 24 hrs at home for 1000 bucks. How many of those who support these speed limits have driven above 50kmph in any road other the NH in Kerala, you were breaking the law. Those taking the moral high ground, keep in mind this fund raising drive (not law enforcement as some misguided folks seem to think )is to pay Onam bonuses to the government employees, if that isn't conflict of interest according to you, then I guess anything goes.

The public could also do a favour by realizing that the NH is not for pedestrians and they don't have right of way when they are crossing the lanes.

The speed that the bus was fined for was around 150 and everybody on that stretch is at risk when anyone does this kind of speed, anywhere. None of the Indian roads are meant for this kind of speed.
And fines are not only meant for "funds", they are also a way to educate people. Even i drive on expressway, at times speeds more than 80, but surely less than 100. But if police catches me for over speeding or any violation, at least i dont repeat that mistake that i did, at least on that stretch. So, law has forced me to be in the limits and it soon becomes a habit to not over speed or to not break laws, jump signals etc.

A very proven example of people following rules by imposing fines, is that of seat belts. Take my example, initially, i felt uncomfortable using seat belts but slowly i started to use it everyday. But, once near to Mallya hospital, i had gone for removing the tints for my car and i was not wearing seat belts, only once, but i was caught by the police. In today's date, i wear them the moment i sit in my car. So, not only the Bangalore police got fine from me, but also educated me, well, kind of.

[sandeepmohan]

At this rate, the MVD should be rolling in cash as all the private buses over speed and run souped up in Kerala. I am not kidding about the souped up part. This is from personal experience.

18 years ago was the time I was in school and for those familiar with Cochin will know the stretch between the Modern Bread factory and the V fork that leads to Palarivattom/Stadium. The driver of my school bus used to clock 100kmph with a full pay load of students and teachers. Achieving this speed was effortless though highly dangerous for the folks on the bus, road users and pedestrians. I was grinning about this speed back then as I knew nothing or understood risks. Heck; I used to stand right behind the gear stick just to watch the speedo climb.

It is really hard to be a patient driver in KL. I complain of rash driving in Bangalore. Rash driving gets a whole new meaning once you are in Kerala. It is not just the bus drivers. Everyone is in a tearing hurry to get somewhere.

I am not sure a fine can stop the speeding problem in Kerala. You need jail term for this to work in gods own country.

[vibbs]

I dont know if Volvos can do 130 or 150 or 180. But in my three trips between Bangalore Pune by Airavat club class, I had mapped the entire journey on GPS. The top speed out of the three trips was at 111.xx Kms/hr.

However, I seriously doubt the safety of the buses doing these speeds. Speed limits need to be revised maybe, but 150 Km/hr is not justifiable under any circumstances IMO.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by turbo_delight

The speed that the bus was fined for was around 150
...
only once, but i was caught by the police. In today's date, i wear them the moment i sit in my car. So, not only the Bangalore police got fine from me, but also educated me, well, kind of.

The seat belt rule was implemented in Kerala with fines and I have no problems with that, in fact Bangalore got the rule much later and I never had issues with it because I put on my seatbelts before I start the car - ingrained habit by then . However, that hasn't improved anything else on the road, Kerala has collected 8 times the earlier revenue and done nothing with road infrastructure.

I used to do high speeds on the Dindigul - Salem stretch when the road didn't have any hedge in the middle and cyclists were visible from far away and you could be prepared. Not possible today because the high hedge hides these people and you have to drive on the left lane to be safe - right lane means sure crash as you have no space in an emergency .

[nitinbose]

Originally Posted by rajeev k

The Government wants money to pay salary advance and Onam allowance well ahead of the Kerala's Onam celebrations commencing on September 15

I loved that! LOL!

Such challenges are the very cause of the pathetic state of our country.

[vb-saan]

I hope these measures by Mr. Singh and team does not remain short term. I feel these strict measures – enforcement of speed limits, lane discipline, dipping of headlamps etc. can bring a huge difference to the road safety scenario in the state.

Since the topic is on buses, and open stretch of 4/6-lane highways, I just want to add a couple of points:
1) Even in developed countries with better infrastructure/roads and better equipped buses/coaches, the speed limit for heavy vehicles are governed and observed diligently. For e.g.; I believe in EU, the speed limit for heavy vehicles are around 80-100 kmph.
2) These long distance buses from/to Kerala normally cover the distance of 500+ kms with just a couple of breaks in between. The fatigue factor due to continuous driving throughout the night is something which is normally overlooked in the name of convenience.

It’s easy to dismiss these actions as money-minting exercise, or harassment against road-users/bus operators. But a death toll of around 700+ (in the first 3 months of 2013) on Kerala roads surely does not happen with sane driving.