[sgm]

Wonderful work Akshay.
It is indeed very heart warming to see your actions towards a safer world and it is an inspiration for many of us when we doubt what difference can we make.
Gandiji's Quote "Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it"

[Reinhard]

This is a priceless contribution. A heartfelt gratitude to you @akshay_b. Its these things a kind citizen can do that actually make life saving difference. I don't know if you feel it - but every night, you should go to sleep with a satisfaction of having directly saved lives.

The special thing about India. Its the silent contributors like yourself that make sure the system keeps functioning regardless of authorities or governments. Salute to you mate. God bless.

[Thermodynamics]

Kudos Akshay. It is disheartening to see the state of affairs of Bengaluru roads given the highest road tax we pay here.

Since your initiative is gaining traction, did BBMP authorities touch base with you again ?
If so, may be we can use this thread where Bangalore BHPians can report locations with photographs and selected volunteers just like you can co-ordinate/follow up with authorities to ensure the problem is resolved.

[Durango Dude]

Great job, Akshay. Thanks for taking the initiative to make the roads safer at night. Next some one needs to get the grazing cattle of the roads. On recent drive back from Salem to Chennai, I had a heart in the mouth experience, when a "geofenced' cow it's neck tied to one limb made a dash across the road, I had to swerve right and straighten back to avoid the median and there was a Fortuner in the fast lane that was going slow, lucky for me. It was a pretty close shave and will never forget it.

[2himanshu]

Very good work, kudos to you!

More than a decade back my grand dad riding a Luna TFR fell while negotiating a pothole at our native place. My father, a doctor, then started filling it up everyday while his way to clinic with concrete. The police asked him once then left him alone. The embarrassed locals of the area then started helping him. It took him a week but was done without any help from authorities.

And like mentioned in earlier post, if not us, who? It's your city and town and importantly it's our life.

Please keep up the good work!

Regards

[Rahul Rao]

Originally Posted by akshay_b

Today's Bangalore mirror wrote an article about me pasting stickers on unmarked dividers.

Excellent. many years ago I did the same at two places where I had witnessed multiple accidents.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=18...73.759305&z=19 This bridge on NH4 where the angle of road suddenly changes, and culvert protrudes into carriage way. http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=18...73.770388&z=19 A culvert here where 6 lanes suddenly become 4 and 6 again. http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=17...73.963308&z=15 A culvert here where the road narrows and widens again.
Funny incident here was a trailer stopped seeing me put the warnings, and gave me cover to cross the road, then the driver told me to stop at a tea shop near Anawedi. He said he drives 4 to 5 trips a month between Jodhpur and Bangalore wrote me a list of 28 dangerous spots where he sees accidents regularly, saying if a sahib like you is doing this telling the correct authority will reduce accidents.


Rahul

[Vasanth]

Originally Posted by akshay_b

Bumping up this old thread again. I've complained to BBMP about various road dividers lacking a hazard board, and a few days later a person from BBMP asked me to come to the spot to help him locate the divider which I happily obliged to do. He assured me that a board will be installed in a few days, but it's been over 3 weeks and nothing has been done to it....

Thanks a lot Akshay for letting us know about the almost invisible divider.
We drive a lot. But we always prefer day time.
And yes, Bangalore, it’s the main hub for long distance road trips.
Hyderabad-Pondicherry-Chennai-Madurai-Mumbai in all possible directions. But I have never driven in Bangalore at night time. Probably one day we have to.
And look out for unexpected/non-engineered/unplanned dividers on road.
Thank you.

[Storm2.0]

Hi Akshay, I'm a Bangalorean myself and I would like to thank you for doing such a great job because I might have been benefited too by this great work of yours and stayed safe during night time drives.

Also another menace is the presence of unscientific and unmarked speed breakers in many parts of Bangalore. I've seen drivers panicking when they notice these humps at the last moment.

[JoshMachine]

Kudos Akshay, and thanks a ton for this absolutely noble initiative
Not only Bangalore, but every major city deserves to know your priceless contribution to humanity! And Team BHP will probably help spread that goodness!!

[colinpete]

Excellent initiative akshay !
kudos to your personal dedication and selfless attitude.
I've lived in blore all my life and seen the good and pathetic side of things too.
lost count on how many times I've seen vehicles over riding into unmarked medians / protrusions.
what saddens me is that you will have some stupid law that covers you for defacing public property and some lame ass excuse to stop your good work just because the authorities aren't worthy enough to do the same thing.

my two cents

[Amity]

Great Initiative Akshay. It is absolutely amazing that you have taken effort to make roads safer in our country, a place where people designing the roads don't give much thought to it. I have come across innumerable instances of vehicle driving into unmarked medians, protruding metal railings on the roads, cyclists riding without reflective lights etc.

One of my friends' brother has taken similar initiative. Initially, he himself used to put reflective tapes on medians/trees wherever he came across them and used to distribute reflective tapes, bought out of his own pocket, among family/friends to put up at similar places. To ensure wide reach, he put forth this proposal in his company under CSR initiative which was accepted and has now been taken up on a bigger scale. He even distributes it to Security Guards, Policemen etc. who have to work at night and are at risk from other vehicles. Further, he has created a FB page (https://www.facebook.com/Bevisiblebesafe/) to spread awareness and you can contact him if any reflective tape is needed.

My Salute to all such Noble and Selfless Souls !!!

[RK79]

Great initiative brother, most of us will curse the authorities for their wrong doings and move on but you have shown how a responsible citizen should be. Hope your action wake up the authorities. Let all of us work together to make our roads safer

[RGK]

No words to express Akshay.. what a priceless contribution Many thanks.

[akshay_b]

Thank you so much each one of you for the kind words and appreciation. I am overwhelmed with all the responses I've got so far, and I'm happy that there are so many people out there who would like to join hands to make our roads safer.

Your words of encouragement and support mean a lot to me and I feel very motivated to keep going.

Thank you GTO, for moving this thread to the homepage

Originally Posted by dailydriver

That said, I wouldn't discount the chances of one or the other agencies censuring you for defacing public property .
So, tread carefully.

Originally Posted by wildsdi5530

Is this legally allowed? Won't the police book you for defacing public property. It is an excellent citizen initiative, but I'm just worried about the legal system in India.

I was worried about this initially too, but I've been pasting these stickers in the exact spot where the authorities had installed a reflective hazard plate which was either damaged or stolen. But thanks for pointing this out guys, I will consult with my lawyer friend about this.

Originally Posted by GTO

akshay_b you're a hero, man! Kudos to the initiative . Moving your post to a new thread. Will add to our homepage tomorrow.

Thank you so much for featuring this on the homepage, GTO!

Originally Posted by comfortablynumb

You have made a cynical & jaded misanthrope like me think that there still might be hope for our country. I am going to show this thread to my daughter today evening, to illustrate what "taking initiative" really means.

Means a lot! Glad I could be of help.

Originally Posted by AJ-got-BHP

In 2016 while touring Rajasthan, I saw that the Rajasthan Police were asking truckers to pull aside checking whether their tail lights was working or not and whether they had the reflective stickers at the rear or not. For the ones which did not have them, they were affixing the reflective stickers on the rear of the trucks at no additional charge/ cost to the trucker keeping road safety in mind. How often do we see such a thing ? Rarely.

Great Initiative brother ! Keep up the good work and keep inspiring us.

This is an amazing initiative by the authorities at RJ. I remember seeing a video on YouTube where cyclists in London were pulled over by the cops for not having reflectors on their cycles and were provided with free reflective tapes to paste on their cycles!

I've also noticed that the public transport vehicles in Bangalore, including cabs and auto-rickshaws, have a mandatory red reflective tape at the back.

Originally Posted by Thermodynamics

Kudos Akshay. It is disheartening to see the state of affairs of Bengaluru roads given the highest road tax we pay here.

Since your initiative is gaining traction, did BBMP authorities touch base with you again ?
If so, may be we can use this thread where Bangalore BHPians can report locations with photographs and selected volunteers just like you can co-ordinate/follow up with authorities to ensure the problem is resolved.

The BBMP authorities did not get in touch with me, however, a retired BBMP engineer contacted me with some ideas for these kind of unmarked dividers.

That's a great idea, we can use this thread to report such dangerous medians.

Originally Posted by colinpete

what saddens me is that you will have some stupid law that covers you for defacing public property and some lame ass excuse to stop your good work just because the authorities aren't worthy enough to do the same thing.

Thanks, colinpete, I'm planning to get some advice on this from my lawyer friend and will keep you guys posted on what he has to say.

Originally Posted by Amity

One of my friends' brother has taken similar initiative. Initially, he himself used to put reflective tapes on medians/trees wherever he came across them and used to distribute reflective tapes, bought out of his own pocket, among family/friends to put up at similar places. To ensure wide reach, he put forth this proposal in his company under CSR initiative which was accepted and has now been taken up on a bigger scale. He even distributes it to Security Guards, Policemen etc. who have to work at night and are at risk from other vehicles. Further, he has created a FB page (https://www.facebook.com/Bevisiblebesafe/) to spread awareness and you can contact him if any reflective tape is needed.

My Salute to all such Noble and Selfless Souls !!!

This is awesome! I just had a look at the pictures on their Facebook page and work that they've put in is just amazing. Thank you for sharing this. I will get in touch with them to get more inputs and ideas. The organization that I work for supports many kinds of CSR initiatives and I'm definitely proposing this idea to be taken up as a CSR initiative.

[hiren.sharma]

Great Job @Akshay I'm very humbled and delighted to see the great job you are doing.

More practical people like you and our roads are going to be a lot safer. Not sure but you should get our own TBHP PadmaBhushan for the year award.

Mods: Can't we ask each TBhp member to take care of dividers in the area they live in? This can easily solve our problem nationwide.