[sarathlal]

Came across this news article quoting Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari;

"Vehicle speed has improved with the improved highways in the country, so now we will have to make tyres of international standard. We will soon make norms as per the requirement of international standard tyres so that there is no accident due to tyre burst"

And have to applaud the high quality road surfaces we are getting in these newly constructed highways and expressways.

While this is a good idea to focus more on equipping vehicles to be better prepared for the improved infrastructure, have a few queries in terms of new ‘particles’ being introduced onto the newly built roads that are actually pulling the system in opposite way;

1. Inadvertent usage of Static road reflectors. - Road reflectors are critical elements that should be used in roads for better nigh time illumination. But what we could observe in the newly built roads, is their inadvertent usage. These reflectors are scattered haphazardly all over the roads instead of arranging in one or two lines in an evenly spaced manner. And the frequency of such strips are very high. These series of strips appear every 300-400 meters in some roads. Will this not damage the vehicle tyres eventually, or atleast accelerate the deterioration? Not to mention their condition after couple of months with the nuts and bolts exposed.



2. Rubble strips made out of paint. - Again, these are critical elements that should be there on the road. Problem is, these are not built to any standards. Some of them are very thick that it literally rattles out the entire vehicle while running over. Worst case, these are placed at corners sometimes which could destabilise vehicles running over. The rumbling sound that it creates is another level of sound pollution for those living near these places. More on this here: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...ian-roads.html (Rumble Strips: Unscientific and irritating implementation on Indian roads)

Both of above could have been ok and required if done right;
For eg a single lane of around 4 pieces per side of the road for the reflectors and ~5 mm thick rumble strips

These appear to be newly introduced (within last couple of years) particles to road infrastructure. Wondering if they are really thought through as they appear to be counter productive for all the positive advancements made in terms of road infrastructure.

Won't these eventually contribute to higher frequency of tyre burst induced accidents as the overall vehicle speed increase in the expressways?
(The above example is from a city road, but its the same condition on city roads, state highway as well as national highway

[GForceEnjoyer]

Definitely, this is a situation of one step forward (new infrastructure such as expressways) and half a step back (things like rumble strips). They definitely accelerate vehicle wear and it sometimes fills me with rage thinking about how we have to subject our prized possessions to such involuntary abuse.

However, I'd say that this isn't nearly the worst consequence. The most severe suffering is imposed on two-wheeler riders. The situation in Hyderabad for example, has gotten so bad that many people are complaining of severe back issues due to this. A damaged suspension can ultimately be replaced, but can a damaged spine?


This video is in Telugu, but the sheer number of people speaking up about this in the nearly two hour long video is enough to understand the magnitude of the problem.
Link (V6 News).

The long term damage caused by these measures will be substantial. Mounting vehicle repair bills, a ton of noise pollution (this is a genuine negative externality imposed on anyone living near roads) and the increased risk of fatality. This is worsened by the sheer number of rumble strips (infused with reflectors or not) being laid down. Look at this horrific satellite view from Hyderabad for example.


Or this picture I personally took on a national highway in Maharashtra.


The problem definitely isn't confined to just these two locations either.

Isn't it ironic to see that something touted as a "traffic calming measure" or "safety device" brings so many of its own perils? Countless times, I've felt vehicles lose traction if braking on rumble stirps or simply driving at any speed over rumble strips on curves. There is a genuine risk of a loss of control if someone is unable to counter steer, which can cause a nasty accident.

Moreover, it causes traffic to behave haphazardly, with some road users slowing to a crawl and some trying to speed up (because ironically, in most cases, the slower you are, the more severely you are physically rattled by these). This creates a very unpredictable and dangerous situation.

So yes, such measures definitely have the potential to increase the number of mishaps in the long run. Not to mention the annoyance and inconvenience that has now been discussed extensively over these threads:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...ian-roads.html (Rumble Strips: Unscientific and irritating implementation on Indian roads)

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...le-strips.html (Hyderabad's ridiculous rumble strips)

[windrider]

Those thick rumble strips are a real pain. I am forced to run my alto and two wheelers a couple of PSI lower than what the manufacturer suggests just to stop my spine from disintegrating. The dashboard of the alto shakes violently when I pass over these strips even at slow speeds that I am forced to slow down to almost 20-25kmph when driving over them. My Honda city on the other is able to deal with them a lot better. I think if the govt could slightly reduce the thickness and increase the gap between each individual strip, it wouldn't be such an issue. At present it feels like driving over a washboard. Another major problem I am facing are those huge expansion joints on newly built flyovers. Some of them are so deep, that if you are at speeds above 100, you feel like you are literally flying out of them. I remember travelling in the middle east, and the expansion joints on those flyovers never felt so jarring and they were constructed in the 70s and 80s during the gulf boom. Its sad that we cant get such basic things right even in 2023.

[cryptarchy]

I recently drove on parts of newly built Dwarka Expressway that is open to local traffic. I was going going way under proposed speed limit. But the expansion joints on the flyovers are so badly built that there is no way cars can go speed limit and be stable. My car was like a kangaroo on those expansion joints.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

1. Inadvertent usage of Static road reflectors. -

2. Rubble strips made out of paint. -

Originally Posted by windrider

Those thick rumble strips are a real pain. I am forced to run my alto and two wheelers a couple of PSI lower than what the manufacturer suggests just to stop my spine from disintegrating. The dashboard of the alto shakes violently when I pass over these strips even at slow speeds that I am forced to slow down to almost 20-25kmph when driving over them. My Honda city on the other is able to deal with them a lot better.

A lot of this comes down to the car in question. Most cars on our roads have horrible ride and handling at highway speeds, while a select few are very good. These static road reflectors and rumble strips go pretty much unnoticed in my Compass as well as Hexa. As long as the road is clear, I don’t even bother slowing down. These cars drive over them at 100-120kmph without the occupants feeling a thing. Ditto for expansion joints. So much so that you have to be alert, for other cars with worse suspensions tend to hit their brakes and you don’t want to rear end them.

Same situation in my City, and all this is a problem and just the way you guys describe it. The car cannot handle them, and you have to slow down. If you drive over them at speed, your passengers as well as your own spine start complaining. And the car feels like it will fall apart.

Net net, with improved highways, we need cars with improved suspensions. The typically tinny Asian car suspensions don’t cut it anymore.

[RunGaDa]

We Indians are very much likely to reinvent the wheel when there is a choice between following international standards and doing the right thing.
For once why can’t we follow what others have done? UAE came from no where to setup a world class road system. Bureaucracy is like a cancer. We have headstrong, brainless folks siting and flubbing out stuff.
Stark example in urban infra is the bio diversity flyover in Hyderabad. The thing has been a witness to a fast and furious entrepreneur jumping over it with his car and causing deaths of two.
What happens next? They close the horrible flyover for two months and open it with million rumble strips. Only back ache when driving through that flyover, no fun.
And for God sake it’s actually banked negatively. No court will fix that.
So much for the one time tax we pay and get to drive on unsafe roads and unscientific infra.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

Net net, with improved highways, we need cars with improved suspensions. The typically tinny Asian car suspensions don’t cut it anymore.

An unloaded 407 in front of me braked hard to almost a stop after the initial rumble strips and proceeded at crawling speeds. I had to brake hard and veer off to the adjacent lane, by luck neither was there a vehicle on the adjacent lane nor anyone immediately behind me to rear end. I believe the 407 doesn't have a tinny Asian suspension.

The rumble strips in our roads do not have standardisation, and I really have a doubt that most are purposefully raised higher to last longer. Example, the rumble strips in the stretch that I mentioned above, after 5-6 years have now wore down to the proper height. Warning drivers to slow down instead of shaking their bones.

[TheVegabond]

Nice thread

There are 3 major issues that I have been facing whenever I drive on the expressways:

1. Truckers using the rightmost lane - this is something coming from years long practice of driving on single lane narrow highways where frequent braking is needed on left lanes due to obstructions caused by autos/cycles/bikes/jay walkers. On access controlled expressways these truckers occupy the lanes on the right and, drive relatively slow causing the fast vehicles to zig-zag through this slow moving traffic - this can cause severe accidents.

2. Expansion joints and uneven curves - Irrespective of which expressway you are driving on, the expansion joints are so badly designed/executed that it almost always catch you by surprise and can cause you to lose control when driving at more than 70km/hr. Same is the story with curves, especially at the start/end of a flyover - the road is usually uneven slopping vigorously towards the curving side causing you to brake hard and, hope that the vehicles behind you do the same.

3. Wrong side driving - Local drivers especially tractors happily drive on the wrong side of Access controlled expressways with entry/exits/u-turns few and far between. No point arguing with them as they would never understand what an expressway is.

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by RunGaDa

We Indians are very much likely to reinvent the wheel when there is a choice between following international standards and doing the right thing.

I second you.

The rumble strips produce a vibrotactile or auditory warning in the form of a sudden rumbling sound or vibration to inattentive, drowsy, or sleeping drivers that are either approaching some intersection where they need to slow/calm down or encroach on the shoulder unknowingly to let them merge back in their lane or to let them know of any hazard in advance. The main problem lies in the way these rumble strips are unscientifically constructed. I won’t be blaming the executor, but the Indian roads congress (IRC-99) who have designed the rumble strips to be 20-30mm height. That's simply insane. However, the USDOT specifies it to be 5-6mm height, depending on the speed zone, which is similar to the IRC for “Transverse bar markings” and are made of thermoplastic paints.

There are so many lacunas in the way roads are designed. During my recent trip to India, I had observed that the roads have been improved significantly including the speeds of the vehicles. However, the design of the roads at certain sections was abysmal, including the rumble strip, which in reality just tests the suspensions of the vehicle and the character of the driver, these have been put at locations where either they are not required or unscientifically done. In my opinion, they could be called as minor bumps and not rumble strips.

Similarly, with regards to the expansion joints on the bridges/flyover, these joints should be on an angle to the road surface and not perpendicular which throws the vehicle almost in air, this is same phenomenon while approaching a culvert on a high-speed road. For a moment you feel that you are on a roller coaster ride.

Seems we are in need of Decent Civil Engineers.

NomadSK

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by DicKy

An unloaded 407 in front of me braked hard to almost a stop after the initial rumble strips and proceeded at crawling speeds. I had to brake hard and veer off to the adjacent lane, by luck neither was there a vehicle on the adjacent lane nor anyone immediately behind me to rear end. I believe the 407 doesn't have a tinny Asian suspension.

The rumble strips in our roads do not have standardisation, and I really have a doubt that most are purposefully raised higher to last longer. Example, the rumble strips in the stretch that I mentioned above, after 5-6 years have now wore down to the proper height. Warning drivers to slow down instead of shaking their bones.

While the Tata 407 truck is not relevant to this discussion, the point remains that same: most cars don’t have suspensions that can manage these irregularities at highway speeds.

As for rumble strips, the big ones are explicitly designed for heavy trucks. The little ones that shake our cars up, they don’t even register on the large 14 and 18 wheelers and loaded dumpers. These big rumble strips are needed to serve their purpose for this important and large segment of highway users.

[sudeepg]

Thankfully, I use a car that is able to do soft offroading and can deal with these rubber paint strips just fine. I use 33 PSI and it works well and even better under normal load. Just yesterday, when I was returning to Bangalore and passed these rubber strips without feeling anything, near Thoppur ghat section, they have created running recesses into the roads which are wide (almost as wide as a small tile) and this is right across the road. This surely was unsettling smaller cars. Most smaller cars and two-wheelers dogded it by using the road shoulder.

I wonder who approves such changes with no safety in mind. We should report this to NHAI I suppose. Each state seems to have their own fancy ways of controlling speed and traffic.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by DicKy

The rumble strips in our roads do not have standardisation

Exactly and hence the same cars that glide over some rumble strips and provide that assurance and pride will shake away to glory when they pass on certain rumble strips that are more edgy and placed more closer to each other. Have experienced this myself in multiple cars when driving or as a co-passenger too. Rumble strips if not designed properly are certainly going to pass that shake into your car no matter what.

Secondly, it depends on the brand of tires and the pressure. Old tires with hard rubber will ensure that the experience on passing these rumble strips wont be a pleasant experience no matter what car one is driving. On the other hands, relatively new tires with softer compound or sidewalls will not pass the vibrations into the cabin or seats. Another thing that matters is the profile of the tires. A low profile tire will most certainly pass the disturbance into the cabin irrespective of how plush or sporty your car's suspension is and it will glide over them only when you are faster. A taller sidewall on the other hand will provide better experience as you pass them.

I have never found any issues with rumble strips that we see that are on most national highways whether alone or with full load. I pass them at a casual 90-100 kmph or even more depending on the nature of junction and the traffic movement around these areas.

However, we do have example of unscientific implementation of these rumble strips, one being our very own BBMP and within Bangalore city limits. Those who frequent Doddaballapura road know what I am referring to and the link to the other thread has experiences shared by car owners from most brands/countries.

Those on outer ring road, especially on concrete sections are even more painful, again due to unscientific implementation. They pass a more pronounced feedback over the asphalt counterparts.

Having the right tire pressure both when you travel with only front seats occupied or with all seats and luggage is very important that most often gets ignored. The expansion joints if uneven can easily slow down any car for that matter. Hebbal flyover descent towards KIAL side is a beautiful and apt example of this.

Hence, as long as there is a standard maintained for such rumble strips, we shouldn't see it as a major problem. Examples of good standards are aplenty

• Belgaum Kolhapur Satara Pune section of NH48
• Kurnool Hyderabad section of NH44
• Hyderabad Adilabad section of NH44
• Nelamangala Kunigal Bellur Cross section of NH48
• Few sections of Mumbai Goa (NH66)

[sarkankur]

Originally Posted by sarathlal

Came across this news article quoting Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari;


And have to applaud the high quality road surfaces we are getting in these newly constructed highways and expressways.

While this is a good idea to focus more on equipping vehicles to be better prepared for the improved infrastructure, have a few queries in terms of new ‘particles’ being introduced onto the newly built roads that are actually pulling the system in opposite way;

1. Inadvertent usage of Static road reflectors. - Road reflectors are critical elements that should be used in roads for better nigh time illumination. But what we could observe in the newly built roads, is their inadvertent usage. These reflectors are scattered haphazardly all over the roads instead of arranging in one or two lines in an evenly spaced manner. And the frequency of such strips are very high. These series of strips appear every 300-400 meters in some roads. Will this not damage the vehicle tyres eventually, or atleast accelerate the deterioration? Not to mention their condition after couple of months with the nuts and bolts exposed.

Attachment 2457048

2. Rubble strips made out of paint. - Again, these are critical elements that should be there on the road. Problem is, these are not built to any standards. Some of them are very thick that it literally rattles out the entire vehicle while running over. Worst case, these are placed at corners sometimes which could destabilise vehicles running over. The rumbling sound that it creates is another level of sound pollution for those living near these places. More on this here: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...ian-roads.html (Rumble Strips: Unscientific and irritating implementation on Indian roads)

Both of above could have been ok and required if done right;
For eg a single lane of around 4 pieces per side of the road for the reflectors and ~5 mm thick rumble strips

These appear to be newly introduced (within last couple of years) particles to road infrastructure. Wondering if they are really thought through as they appear to be counter productive for all the positive advancements made in terms of road infrastructure.

Won't these eventually contribute to higher frequency of tyre burst induced accidents as the overall vehicle speed increase in the expressways?
(The above example is from a city road, but its the same condition on city roads, state highway as well as national highway

I feel what you are saying.

Anyone who has travelled at night on the ECR (NH32) or the Chennai-Bangalore Highway (NH48) would have noticed this.

There are police barriers every now and then with loads of high-intensity reflective tape on them. It literally fills the road with these red and yellow strobes. This makes it so difficult to find the gaps in the barricade unless you slow down to 30–40 kmph on a highway in the middle of the night.

I mean, why do we need barricades at random places on the highway at night?

There are also certain highways, like the NH16, that have huge speed breakers on them. Why would you put a speed breaker in the middle of an NH? Then there are the service lanes with the runway strips. Most of them feel like they have been installed just to be a nuisance for smaller cars and two-wheelers.

[dicor]

The problem is with a lack of awareness of our actions when we approach these rumble strips.

Some people slow down, as someone precisely noted, while others begin to pick up speed.

This is not a concern if driving licenses are given following appropriate evaluation rather in the influence of agents and Gandhi ji.

Rumble strips are visible from a distance, ideally, when I see a rumble strip, I get the idea that I have been expected to be more cautious. As I approach the first strip, I remove my feet from the throttle and become extra vigilant.

Suspensions are not so weak that they will break down because of these rumble strips, yes they will wear out a little bit early but consider it a cost of safety.

These rumble strips are much better than a set of invisible three small speed breakers or having nothing at all at intersections and turns.

The highway authorities are also expected to follow the thickness guidelines.

[shresan23]

I read somewhere that these strips were placed in such an obtrusive manner to reduce drowsiness. While that problem might be rectified, i think, the problems that arise out of this, outweighs its advantages.

The thickness wakes up even the dozing passengers.

IMHO, this feels like a half brained move.

I have a conflicting theory. If waking people up was the objective, why place it at the junction, where any type of reaction, is too late? They should have placed the strips some hundred or so metres ahead of the junction.

As far as the negative effects are concerned, they outweigh the advantages. Those things could be thinner, far less bumpy, a bit stretched even.