[tj123]

Originally Posted by mvadg

Another nice PPT, that I converted to a PDF (attached)

Thanks for sharing the PDF, somehow I am not able to open the file, getting an encoding error. Can you please check and upload again.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by tj123

Thanks for sharing the PDF, somehow I am not able to open the file, getting an encoding error. Can you please check and upload again.

Seems corrupted, thanks for letting me know. I have attached the pdf again.

(actually the prior upload seems to be the original PPT, if you wish, you can change the extension to PPT and view it as a presentation!)

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by VaidhiR

Non-Newtonian Fluid Speed Breaker.
While this calls for an extensive investment, I think that we could use this as a long term solution. And inside major cities.
The basic idea is that the car drives on top of a rubberised tube. The speed of the roll of the wheel on the rubber determines the bump. The fluid stays flexible and Newtonian under speed limits. The moment speeds exceed, the liquid become hard, becoming non-Newtonian. And this becomes a speed bump forcing the driver to slow down.
...

This is the best solution, I think. Speeders get a punitive bump, while those obeying the speed limit are rewarded with a smooth ride.
I don't know what non-Newtonian fluid they used, but I'm sure we can replicate the concept with a active bumps that do the same thing based on sensors and a mechanism to raise the speed breaker.
Animals learn to avoid pain and since we behave like animals on the road, this painful bump would teach us all to behave; double-quick!

[jalsa777]

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

While the lack of speed (or difference in speed) is one of the contributing factors for crashes, studies have time and again shown that a large number of crashes do happen due to high speeds. Please don't get me wrong, but according to safety norms, a 40km/h is a high speed in a residential neighbourhood! It has a much higher probability of killing a pedestrian in case of a crash than 30km/h. The 10km/h makes a huge difference!

Totally agree with you. On small streets, and in in areas with high proportion of pedestrian traffic, 30 kmph is much better than 40. In fact, i do drive at that speed in these areas cause I got used to it when i drove in Europe.

I should have clarified that i am not against speed limits, especially in urban scenarios, I am against this obsession that reducing speed will reduce our problems. According to me most of are problems are down to bad roads and even worse driving.

The urban (by urban i mean scenarios where roads are shared with other users like pedestrians) and highway/main road scenarios are very different.
Most of our speed limits are only enforced on bigger roads which have extremely reduced pedestrian usage. On these roads, stupid driving by untrained drivers is the major issue.
On the smaller roads, no limits are enforced.

The main problem is that most of these discussions are being done by people who rarely ever drive! The researchers, journalists, law makers, etc. are sitting on the bench and making observations in most cases. Very few of these people have much driving experience themselves and thus they do not grasp the realities of the roads. (I do not have any proof of this statement, it is just a personal observation/opinion)

[deehunk]

The first place to start is the speedometer, remove those numbers from the dial which are above the permissible speed limits in India.

[jithin23]

Speed might be a factor for crashes but it's the lack of discipline and storng enforcement by police(without involving corruption or bribe) which compounds the problem. People need to respect the road signs and speed limits so that each of us can drive less fatigued and less stress. If the individual's mindset is towards respecting road rules, our country would have far fewer fatalities.
Before people can instill these rules, where are all our road taxes going to? Definitely not for development of roads as there's still way too many unplanned roads in Bangalore at least. White topping is another controversy though.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

...various agencies are using different measures to reduce speed (aka calm traffic) to reduce the number of fatalities. Some of the measures employed are:

1. Legislation: Passing of relevant laws to ensure that motorists and vehicles adhere to safety standards. Some ongoing examples are Speed limit rules in MVAB (Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill) and Speed governors on commercial vehicles.
2. Engineering: (This is the highlight of this post) Using different techniques to reduce the speed of vehicles. 'Engineering' as a traffic calming measure will be mentioned below.
3. Enforcement: Using the police force to ensure that vehicles travel only below the speed limit and fining errant vehicles.
4. Emergency: Treatment of crash victims to ensure no loss of life.
5. Education: Teaching the community and society on the rules of the road and how to be safe on roads.

This post is a humble request to the Team-BHP community to help identify the various engineering measures that are used throughout the country to identify the best practices along with the bad (ineffective and dangerous) practices.

The first part of your post sounds perfectly logical. There are the 4 E's - education, engineering, enforcement, and emergency response, all of which are supported by rational legislation; standard steps to reduce road fatalities, I agree.

I would however, point out that your choice of the priority sequence among the 4 E's is not logical (but I'm presuming it was written without thinking it through). Indian legislators are unable to create sensible laws, of course, yet their priority is right on top... and education takes a back seat in any case.

Then, Team-BHPians are being asked to help identify various engineering measures to identify best practices to reduce speed! Without basic education and logical legislation, all we can think of is to reduce speed on our roads? Fine then, let's revert to the highways and roads of the 1980s and 1990s... dug up narrow roads, bitumen washed away, potholes that can swallow a 4-year-old who would be unable to climb out without help...

Without basic driving education (drivers, even commercial drivers, need not be able to read or write, far less comprehend traffic laws), without basic laws (e.g. India has no specific law that has a penalty clause for not driving in one's lane), and without at least some semblance of enforcement on high-speed corridors (e.g. no drink-driving checks on YEW/ALE/MPEW etc.), we want to create "engineering solutions" to reduce speed? Seriously? All over the First World, roads are designed to have specific speed limits based on pedestrian density, cross flow of traffic, width of road & number of lanes, and whether it is an access-controlled road (whether tolled or not). And here we are, in India, with a standard order of "Go Slow" on our roads. How slow? 5 kmph? No wonder drivers are not prepared to follow rules!

The more engineering solutions we put up to force drivers to slow down below reasonable limits (these limits are well defined internationally), the more impatient drivers will be, the more crashes will increase, and the further we shall try to slow down our traffic flow, until walking would take us faster wherever we are going.

So start with sensible legislation and intensive driver education, follow it up with rational speed limits with strict (and bribe-free, preferably remote-controlled through cameras) enforcement, and we won't need to find ridiculous engineering solutions such as barriers and bumps in the middle of a high-speed corridor.

Edit: This is written even as I am driving over 100 km every day in Melbourne, Australia. Expressway limits within the city are 100 kmph, highways are 80 kmph - and that applies to ALL vehicles - cars, bikes, trucks, double-decker buses, even road trains. Very unlike India, where larger vehicles are expected to go slower than LMVs, and motorcycles are not supposed to exceed 50 kmph by law! When will we get sensible legislation (and legislators)?

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Edit: This is written even as I am driving over 100 km every day in Melbourne, Australia. Expressway limits within the city are 100 kmph, highways are 80 kmph - and that applies to ALL vehicles - cars, bikes, trucks, double-decker buses, even road trains. Very unlike India, where larger vehicles are expected to go slower than LMVs, and motorcycles are not supposed to exceed 50 kmph by law! When will we get sensible legislation (and legislators)?

Here's a video taken in the last couple of days, which clearly shows dense traffic in Melbourne moving in a disciplined manner on a road where the speed limit is 80kmph. Unimaginable in India. And we want our speeds to be further reduced!

https://youtu.be/rJttcneXC4M

[Samba]

Reducing speed is not the solution. Our traffic is already slow and for covering 20 km in city, it takes more than 2 hours! We need to cover distance in lesser time rather wasting all our time on road.
Have we ever done a calculation on what percentage of accident is caused due to over speeding?

Already there are speed limits on highways and cities, why do we need to decrease it further?

The problem lies with the infrastructure, uneducated rule makers and corrupted individuals! We need educated people to designate road rules.

Stringent tests to obtain driving license.
Road filled with potholes and lose gravels are just death trap for bikers. Good road is very important.
Ill maintained vehicles. A tire burst, a snapped tie road end and many more cause a lot of accidents.
The problem lies in the basics.
But people have a common misconception, speed is the only cause of accident.
The main cause of accident is lack of knowledge on how to use the road!

Pedestrians are out on a jaywalking.
Motorcyclists are squeezing through any damn gap they find on the road.
Bigger buses and trucks bullying smaller vehicles.
Small cars changing lanes like, they own the road!
Its best, if we say the least about the auto rickshaws!
Untrained traffic police, specially the civic police in West Bengal suddenly stopping high speed cars/bikes just to release the traffic from the other side. They do not even have the idea when to stop a car and when not to do that.

In Kolkata roads are filled with barricades just to reduce speed!

Result - Bottle neck and during rush hours all cars try to squeeze in through the small gap ! These barricades do not have any reflective tapes either! At night these are leading to more accidents!

In the below picture, 65km/hr speed limit is applicable for a narrow road where there is a curve just 50 m ahead of it and on the curve there is another road joining to this road.

The 30 km/hr speed limit applies to the wider road, which has no curve for the next 500 m!



So lets not concentrate only on reducing speed, its already low and frustrating!

[DriverWanderer]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

The first part of your post sounds perfectly logical. There are the 4 E's - education, engineering, enforcement, and emergency response, all of which are supported by rational legislation; standard steps to reduce road fatalities, I agree.

You are absolutely correct in almost all the things that is pointed out, and I share your pain in admitting that we don't impart basic education correctly, nor do we have the basic laws. To make matters worse, the enforcement is seriously lacking!

However, the intention is not to create "engineering solutions" to reduce speed on high-speed corridors! The solutions are basically for all roads but highspeed roads! But as you stated, we really need to start with sensible legislation and intensive driver education, which is why Legistaltion is added to the top of the list. It makes no sense in most other countries to have Legislation on top of the list as they already have it covered! But we all can agree that India is yet to have strong legislation.

Again, the engineering solutions are not to force the drivers to slow beyond reasonable limits (which is why they are 'engineered solutions') but to create a flow of traffic at the speed limit where required. And yes, I agree that this is not what happens in India, but it should. One of the good examples in this direction is taken in West Bengal, where the separation of traffic by placing cones solved a major issue of overspeeding and overtaking.


And there are many people (including us) who are trying to make good laws, policies and train police and PWD to improve the situation in the country. One of the tools we require is knowledge of various speed management measures used. This post is a request for help to find the "engineering/jugaad" used in the country so that when we talk to people in power, we can show them the good and bad examples.

Originally Posted by Samba

Reducing speed is not the solution. Our traffic is already slow and for covering 20 km in city, it takes more than 2 hours! We need to cover distance in lesser time rather wasting all our time on road.

Oh Lord! The horror of driving on NH-16 (old NH-6) from Kharagpur to Kolkata with untrained traffic police stopping high-speed cars! This road is a death-trap for any driver! The repeated request to remove the barricades on highways has fallen on deaf -mainly due to the public pressure. an ideal solution was to create pedestrian underpass, but that decision was overthrown due to cost escalation!

As pointed out, the posted speed signs on Kolkata is a joke! Following it makes no sense what so ever! The one good thing that was done is the lane-dividing on Kona Expressway.

What is the opinion on limiting the speed of a city to 40km/h on all roads, highways at 50 km/h and purely residential areas at 30km/h?

[desiaztec]

Have road and driving education as a mandatory course across all Indian school boards for 12th graders. Higher grades should be an eligibility for behind the wheel test. The license issued by RTO is not a license to drive but only a national ID. How many of us know yield, right of way, kinds of yellow and white line? I'm sure even the traffic cops and road constructing contractors and agencies are not aware of it.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

...the engineering solutions are not to force the drivers to slow beyond reasonable limits (which is why they are 'engineered solutions') but to create a flow of traffic at the speed limit where required.

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

What is the opinion on limiting the speed of a city to 40km/h on all roads, highways at 50 km/h and purely residential areas at 30km/h?

Contradictory statements above, both in the same post. 50 kmph on highways and 40/30 kmph in the city is actually way below reasonable limits.

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

One of the good examples in this direction is taken in West Bengal, where the separation of traffic by placing cones solved a major issue of overspeeding and overtaking.

There are a few things wrong in that picture - those cones are unnecessary when an unbroken divider exists. Anyone crossing that can be penalized for 'wrong side driving'. OTOH, the carriageway on the left side can accommodate 2 lanes as far as can be seen, yet there is no dividing lane marking there, and drivers don't care how they drive or position their cars.

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

And there are many people (including us) who are trying to make good laws, policies and train police and PWD to improve the situation in the country.

Who are "us"? What qualifies "us" to make laws or train police? Aren't there professional, qualified and experienced folks (especially in other countries) who can conduct such training programs and advise the authorities? Why don't the police in India have a proper Police Drivers' Training School? Why can't the PWD install signage and road markings under the guidance and direct supervision of the traffic police?

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

...help to find the "engineering/jugaad" used in the country so that when we talk to people in power, we can show them the good and bad examples.

People in power will understand and be able to differentiate between good and bad examples? Good luck on that!

Originally Posted by DriverWanderer

...untrained traffic police stopping high-speed cars! This road is a death-trap for any driver! The repeated request to remove the barricades on highways has fallen on deaf -mainly due to the public pressure. an ideal solution was to create pedestrian underpass, but that decision was overthrown due to cost escalation!

There we are - people in power succumb to public pressure, prefer "jugaad" over proper scientific traffic management, and suicidal untrained policemen (or even worse, 'civic police' in WB) put their own, and others', lives at risk by leaping into the middle of the road to stop vehicles and fine the drivers. Hardly an "engineering / engineered solution", you'll agree.

My suggestion would be to look at the overall traffic situation holistically, bring in individual consultants who have been experts in the field of traffic management and driver training (plenty of retired personnel around the world, who would not charge as much as consultancy firms), and implement their suggestions, initially on a trial basis for a few months, and then if it works, large-scale implementation. Let's not "crowdsource" solutions and inputs to make things worse than they already are.

[saket77]

Now in line with this thread, the Govt. has come up with this idea:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/70126286.cms

Transport Minister, Mr. Nitin Gadkari is mulling making it mandatory to mix silicon with rubber to improve quality of tires and using nitrogen to inflate them for reducing the chances of tire bursts on highways. This move comes after another horrific accident on the Noida-Agra highway today morning.

Any views to what degree this may help?

[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by saket77

Now in line with this thread, the Govt. has come up with this idea:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/70126286.cms

Transport Minister, Mr. Nitin Gadkari is mulling making it mandatory to mix silicon with rubber to improve quality of tires and using nitrogen to inflate them for reducing the chances of tire bursts on highways. This move comes after another horrific accident on the Noida-Agra highway today morning.

Any views to what degree this may help?

If air is going to leak then Nitrogen will also leak and lead to underinflated tyres. Nitorgen will only leak a bit slower but it will leak if there is space for the gas to escape. Underinflation is the no. 1 cause of the tyre bursts. It won't matter whether the tyre is down on air or nitrogen! What the mantri needs is TPMS. Make TPMS mandatory and you will save lives.

[DriverWanderer]

Originally Posted by saket77

Now in line with this thread, the Govt. has come up with this idea:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/70126286.cms

Transport Minister, Mr. Nitin Gadkari is mulling making it mandatory to mix silicon with rubber to improve quality of tires and using nitrogen to inflate them for reducing the chances of tire bursts on highways. This move comes after another horrific accident on the Noida-Agra highway today morning.

Any views to what degree this may help?

The air we fill is ~78% Nitrogen!

For regular vehicles, the one and only benefit from nitrogen filling is the increased air retention. But a normally maintained tyre with correct air pressure should perform exactly like a pure nitrogen fill. There is no harm in filling with Nitrogen, but there is very little benefit.

Not too sure on the silicon mix though!