[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by yo222

I mean no offence but then I also see if it's a female driver. Not coz of the popular notion that they are bad drivers but...
... avoid the glares of other drivers.

Your last sentence explains your first sentence.

Must we treat women who drive as *objects* to be harassed, bullied and ogled at on the roads?

And who taught them to drive? Idiotic men who think they themselves are great drivers. My dashcam captured an excellent video of a Maruti Driving School car today, with a young lady taking driving lessons from a young man who was more interested in her than her driving. Will share it tomorrow hopefully.

[yo222]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Your last sentence explains your first sentence.

Must we treat women who drive as *objects* to be harassed, bullied and ogled at on the roads?

And who taught them to drive? Idiotic men who think they themselves are great drivers. My dashcam captured an excellent video of a Maruti Driving School car today, with a young lady taking driving lessons from a young man who was more interested in her than her driving. Will share it tomorrow hopefully.

I'm not here on this thread to discuss whether female drivers are better or is it good to treat them as objects or even whether they are supposed to be ogled at and what not.

Just as it's not right in generalising female drivers for the sake of few bad drivers, I may not want to generalise the male attitude towards women for some lowly person who was interested into some perverse act.

My observation was very clear and has helped me many a number of times in not only saving me in time but also the one driving in front of me, a female driver. To be clear, I again mention that if a lady of driving, I have most of the times seen that they are busy talking/ tending to the kid/other Co passenger which might be her necessity but certainly not a good practice for the overall road safety.

And just to clarify, have also treated male drivers with a cigarette in one hand or the ones talking on phone or the ones seen in an argument/deep discussion with same measure of caution.

But again, as I said, I have seen that the probability of the female drivers being more distracted while driving has been high in my observations as compared to men.

OT: I already have two cases in my direct connection wherein a female driver has taken up driving on the busy Mumbai roads and very risky eastern/western express highways without even taking a single lesson from the so called idiotic men who call them as great drivers and have ended in very bad mishaps in which the other innocent idiotic men were thrashed by some very sane protectors of all females in the world just coz they were in the way of that superwomen. Those superwomen had then sheepishly accepted in person to we in family that it was totally her fault.

And I have also seen female drivers texting and answering phones at the time of taking driving lessons from some idiotic male trainers despite the trainer warning her and making her disembark from the training vehicle in the middle of the training.

So let's not get into gender bashing. It's more about evidence based driving and observing traits / evidences wherever possible.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by yo222

So let's not get into gender bashing. It's more about evidence based driving and observing traits / evidences wherever possible.

Yes, let's not generalize at all - men, women, bad, good, whatever. Evidence-based driving is about looking for specific evidence that is LIKELY to prove to be a safety hazard for US personally as drivers - and avoiding such hazards. If we generalize, we go back to presumption-based driving - and this thread would be redundant.

[tbppjpr]

I think this can be put into this thread :
The Unwritten Rules of Driving in India

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Actually, my gender stereotyping tends to be the opposite.

^ This. As someone who rode 2 wheelers extensively, I preferred women drivers as they're less likely to speed or drive rashly, which meant fewer instances of me soiling my underpants.

Now that I'm on 4 wheels, that attitude continues. Yes, on average, they're slower, but I believe we could do with more of that. They are more predictable, and that's a good thing. If we had more women driving autos, I'm sure traffic congestion would ease noticeably.

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

And if she is pretty, my attention may remain there, and that might kill me

I now wonder whether my checks for aligned mirrors in the vehicle ahead showed me an easy way of looking at attractive women, or if it came about the other way. Classic chicken-or-egg!

[aneezan]

I just saw the video SS, and holy ****! You were damn lucky. I put myself in that place and all I see is myself crashing into that on-coming.
However, in reality, i like to keep a safe distance between any vehicle on the highway. I follow your evidence based rule and more often than not, overtake when I can see that there is nothing in the road up-front. Overtaking on twisties is a definite no-no for me.

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by yo222

due to my observation that female drivers normally are chatting with someone next to her which makes her focus on the drive that much lesser and many times more dangerous for the tailing vehicle.

Dangerous for the vehicle in front too as I learnt - a female driver in animated discussion with co-passenger forgets to brake resulting in her M800 rear-ending my car.

Originally Posted by bblost

If the vehicle in front of me slows down and the lights don't come on, I increase the gap between us.

Not sure if this is conclusive evidence of non-working brake-lights, since many folks (including me) use only engine-braking to slow down most of the time (aided by predictive driving).
It is only for the final stopping that the brakes are used. Clutch is used only to change gears, except in B2B inching traffic. Basically A-pedal modulation is all one needs most of the time.

P.S.: While brake-lights need to be working, I get very jittery in city-traffic if the brake-lights of the car/bike in front of me keep repeatedly blinking. To me, that is a sign of unsure (if not bad) driving and I move away from behind them at the earliest. IMO, the blink frequency of brake-lights is a good indicator of a person's driving, with a higher blink-rate indicating a bad/unsure driver.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

It is only for the final stopping that the brakes are used. Clutch is used only to change gears, except in B2B inching traffic. Basically A-pedal modulation is all one needs most of the time.

P.S.: While brake-lights need to be working, I get very jittery in city-traffic if the brake-lights of the car/bike in front of me keep repeatedly blinking. To me, that is a sign of unsure (if not bad) driving and I move away from behind them at the earliest. IMO, the blink frequency of brake-lights is a good indicator of a person's driving, with a higher blink-rate indicating a bad/unsure driver.

Don't get me wrong, supremeBaleno, my comments are not to negate your driving skills, but to (hopefully) modify them. (I have already put up a disclaimer earlier... )

So here goes...

In the last 2 months and a little more, my frequency of using the brake pedal has gone up. Not to actually apply the brakes, but to warn cars behind by touching the brake pedal. If you were to follow me, it might make you jittery as you say. But I'd rather have a jittery alert driver than a complacent relaxed one behind me, who's more likely to bump into me. Most folks would say, being rear-ended is totally the fault of the car behind. It IS. But as a low risk driver, I want to reduce that risk further, by communicating with her/him through the only means I have - my brake lamps.

If that makes me a bad/unsure driver, so be it. If that forces the car behind to move away from me into another lane or drop back further, I'm happy. If that car wants to squeeze past me by violating my crash avoidance space, sorry, I'm not positioning my car to let him do that. If he decides to ride my bumper and honk away, I open up more space between me and the vehicle ahead - because then he is a REALLY bad driver in a hurry, trying to bully others on the road.

And in a high-traffic situation where the car ahead has an automatic transmission, his brake lights would be perpetually on anyway - even when he is carefully crawling forward. He has no way of modulating his A-pedal to reduce speed. But the lit brake lamps definitely reduce the risk of being rear-ended just a little bit.

[breezydrive]

IMO, the vehicle is being driven a bit aggressively with a desperation to overtake the truck! This is clear from initial few seconds in the video.

I would have put my foot off the accelerator at a point (22 - 23 second in the video) and stopped tailgating.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

Not sure if this is conclusive evidence of non-working brake-lights, since many folks (including me) use only engine-braking to slow down most of the time (aided by predictive driving).

I am wary till I am sure the brake lights come on. Once they do I sort of relax.

Sorry I was not clearer in my post.

[SS-Traveller]

All right then. Let's now move on to
Question #4. Have you ever tried to observe a 2-wheeler rider's right hand & right foot position and movement carefully?

At this point, can we have a show of hands from members who ride 2-wheelers?

Can you please observe your wrist position when you hold the throttle, and when you are ready to apply the front brake? Where are your fingers usually? Wrapped around the throttle, or extended on to the front brake lever? A few images would help. Also, please compare your own wrist positions with those of riders around you, especially those you would consider to be careless.

Also, where is your right foot? (Not to be considered if one is riding an Enfield requiring left foot braking). Is it on the footpeg? Is the ball of the foot on the brake pedal all the time, or do you rotate your foot on to the pedal in anticipation / when it is time to brake? Do you notice any riders alongside you who have their right foot off the footpeg (such as placed on the crash guard)?

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

In the last 2 months and a little more, my frequency of using the brake pedal has gone up. Not to actually apply the brakes, but to warn cars behind by touching the brake pedal.

This is a way of communicating with the traffic behind you. I have seldom, if ever, heard it recommended --- to the extent that I thought I'd thought it up (at least for myself) by myself! I do not know why it is not a part of standard driving practice.

And in a high-traffic situation where the car ahead has an automatic transmission, his brake lights would be perpetually on anyway - even when he is carefully crawling forward. He has no way of modulating his A-pedal to reduce speed. But the lit brake lamps definitely reduce the risk of being rear-ended just a little bit.

I'm not sure about perpetually on, even in traffic. As it is one-foot driving, one has to accelerate to power the car forward. Then, of course, there are no brake lights. What I loved about one of my auto cars was that it had enough "creep" that in crawling traffic, all I had to do was press/release the brake, and not touch the accelerator at all.

[yo222]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

In the last 2 months and a little more, my frequency of using the brake pedal has gone up. Not to actually apply the brakes, but to warn cars behind by touching the brake pedal.

What if your brake lights aren't working one fine day and you end up testing others tailing your vehicle?

Do you check your brake lights everyday and before every ride?

How can one check the brake lights single without anyone's help? (I normally ask my brother to check while I apply it from driver's seat and that too once in about 2 months)

If you are driving in front of me with this theory of braking frequently but lightly , I may end up assuming that, you in front, is either confused or impatient and I would normally increase the distance between our vehicles or maybe try and zip off ahead of you.

[rajivr1612]

Originally Posted by yo222

If you are driving in front of me with this theory of braking frequently but lightly , I may end up assuming that, you in front, is either confused or impatient and I would normally increase the distance between our vehicles or maybe try and zip off ahead of you.

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

If that makes me a bad/unsure driver, so be it. If that forces the car behind to move away from me into another lane or drop back further, I'm happy.

And that's exactly what SS-Traveller wants you to do!!!

[binand]

Originally Posted by yo222

Do you check your brake lights everyday and before every ride?

How can one check the brake lights single without anyone's help? (I normally ask my brother to check while I apply it from driver's seat and that too once in about 2 months)

For me, brakes & reverse light checks are done the same way - look at the reflection on the car parked behind mine (on days its owner leaves before me for office, at the far wall). In a semi-dark basement parking like the one my apartment complex has, it is easy and even the ORVMs help - hence it is a daily routine.