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-   -   Bad Drivers - How do you spot 'em (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/road-safety/3580-bad-drivers-how-do-you-spot-em-311.html)

My new mantra to peace and nirvana - No honking! I have renounced honking now for the last few weeks. No matter what, no matter who is slugging it out in neither lanes, bikers on the right most lane, auto's driving with their front wheel on the lane divider line, pedestrians, dogs, chicken, cows, dimwits etc! Its been weeks now since I pressed the horn button. I just did that this morning to check if horns are working or have they given up on me as well. :-P

This is therapeutic - my patience levels have grown immensely now ;)

Then there is new fast growing fad of talking on the cell phones while riding/driving.

Boy! I admire them so much! One hand on the steering wheel, phone to the ear on the other hand, looking hither thither to see which lane to take, slither into,

Then the heros/heroines on two wheels - one hand on the handle bar, one hand holding the phone - am sure the information being shared is life-n-death type as either of the two cases (cars n bikes) do not have the patience to talk later/use handsfree/stop by the side and pick the call.

Hats off to those daredevils!

Another breed of drivers are those have the very bad habit of keeping their headlamps on while reversing and that too in their high beams (Definitely at night). Perhaps many may not, at all agree with my view but undeniably, they are a bad lot out there on the roads.

Monday Morning! No honking day!

I broke the rule at the Koramangala 80 feet road turn off to the Raheja Residency and BDA complex road.
I was in the extreme left lane, waiting to take a turn when the lights changed.
A grey I10was crowding me from the right side with his left indicator flashing. Driven by a middle manager type wearing glasses and two ladies in the car, one could have been his wife and the other can have been maybe an aunt or something. Clearly they were heading inside Koramangala.
When the light changes, this guy cut me completely by overtaking and squeezing himself before me onto the left turn.
Totally uncalled for and very rude indeed.
So I got hassled and let fly on the horn. Flashing my lights I gave chase and caught up with him. The road being empty I overtook him and crowded him the same way he had done. Gesticulated at him in the mirror to ask why he cut me. All I got was a series of idiotic shrugs and no real reply gestures.
I am thus, led to believe that the man was completely oblivious to having made an error at the traffic lights! He did not even appear to know that he was driving badly. In scenaros like this what really is the point of getting angry?

Don't get into anger mode come what may, so they say. But mind you, there are hoards of such idiotic ones behind the wheels & handles on the Indian roads today and their tribes are on the rise.

You should live in NCR for a bit. You learn to control your temper for the sake of your life.

But you may pick up their habits instead.

Aggressive driving is aggressive driving, and, unless you can read the mind of the driver, you cannot know why they are being aggressive.

Of course, if the ladies in question are wearing up yours, Mr Man-Driver tee shirts, well, that would be different :uncontrol

That's the point, not to get angry while driving. Even if the other guy did cut into your lane, your reaction to it makes you a bad driver as well.. Gesturing, honking, flashing lights, etc. does not constitute good driving habits.

Anyways, drive safe..
Cheers!

Correct. Easy to pontificate. Sometimes very difficult to practice! But that chap got my goat I can tell you!

It happens to all of us on a daily / regular basis. How many people would you honk or flash your lights at ? All that'll get you is a shrug like you rightly said. The only way you can really get back at them is by reporting them to the police. A photo or sometimes just the number is sufficient for BTP to raise a violation. Try it once. :)

I could not agree more. Normally I shrug these irritants off. I do not react at all apart from grumbling to my wife or myself if I am alone.

Monday's experience though, it was really too bad of the guy to barge in the way he did. Really irritating. Hence the adverse reaction from me.
However, I know as well as anyone else that it is a waste of time and does not give back any kind of satisfaction, to lose one's cool.

Even this morning coming to office - I was with my folks who were dropping me off - an Alto barged in to our car's side and created a minor "touch" impact. The Alto was in too much of a hurry to emerge from his side road onto the main road because the main road signal had just turned green.

However, beyond raising a questioning hand at the Alto driver, I did nothing. And the Alto driver - another middle management type - was so thick skinned that he did not even acknowledge my querying hand!!

This new age behaviour amongst the Indian City Drivers does not reflect at all well on our country and standards of so-called education! All it affirms to any casual visitor is that we as a people have no respect for each other or anyone else and hence, are not deserving of any respect either!!

These are two incidences where you noticed and recorded the 'level' of the person involved. I rememeber a earlier post of yours a few weeks back, when you had noticed and recorded the 'out-of-state' number-plate of a irrant 'lady' driver.

Are you sure, your reactions stem from the actual incidences and not from any other biases/prejuidices? Bad driving is bad driving. The 'other' information, you seem to be recording regularly is in a way irrelevant.

I am pretty sure you don't want to imply that middle-managers are bad drivers or only vehicles from a particular state are driven badly in your city.

Would request you to leave out 'other' details about the bad-drivers, lest your posts might be misinterpreted.

Shankar, no offence meant. Just a curious observation.

Yes SDP.
I guess I am also guilty of type casting at some level. No excuses there but in some sense don't we all generalize?
I am certainly not a saint by any stretch, but am a reasonably sensible human, subject to some foibles like most others!
However, I am not afraid to be honest, stand up and take full ownership of my views, statements and actions.
I reserve the right to criticise if you will. I also seek to illustrate that the perpetrators are educated, gainfully employed folks generally.

Good One!
Yes I know NCR is rather lawless. Every time I visit I am amazed at the resilience of the cab drivers there.
No I would not wish to either live there or pick up their habits.
I do not normally react at all on the roads because it is a waste of time. But Monday's experience was really aggravating and I momentarily lost it.
Normally I exert max control and only crib to myself or to my wife or on TBHP.
This time, I realised even while getting angry that two wrongs dont make a right and hence, it is a waste of time.
Blame it on the circumstances I guess. Anyway, not being a Saint or something similar, I am entitled to make an occasional slip or mistake aren't I?

I recently started this practice of counting the number of such occurrences i come across while driving just to keep me from reacting to it. I think most of us would regret later what we do at the spur of the moment. Couple of days back this water truck stopped right in the middle lane ( On the MG Road) to take a right turn when the signal is still green for going straight. And this when there is just one other vehicle on the right most lane which is waiting. I just lost it completely and somehow managed to reach the left and question the guy sitting here. The reaction is just the same as you described. They don't even realize it's a mistake to stop in the center lane and on top of it he didn't have his turn indicators on. At the moment I really wished my ride is actually one of those from the Transformers. I am in a perpetual dilemma whether to tell them what they did was wrong so that those who are not aware of it can actually correct it in future or just ignore and hope that they would learn it once they pay for it.

We must look like little flies to them. Due to the size of the vehicle, they always prefer to make their turns from the middle lane and most often only do about 15kmph. That obviously doesn't sit well with us.

In Chennai, heavy vehicles are only allowed into the city after dark. Traffic police set up barricades at all the entry points and only let them in after ~ 7(?) PM. With demolition/construction happening in almost every street in Bangalore, we see mud, cement, steel etc being hauled in huge trucks along side us during peak hours in the heart of the city. I guess that's the difference between a Metro and a Metropolitan city.

Counting high-beams drives me nuts every evening! It is an exercise in self-control that I'm not managing very well at. But then, I was always a dud at math!

I had an incident with an outstation-plated R15 with the typical Sallu-inspired gelled-hair (helmet spoils the look YAAR!), three-buttons-open, blue-and-yellow-slippers, no-helmet dude riding, with his lovely lady pillion in a similarly hilarious getup (you gotta love the typecasting!). The guy was riding on high-beam behind me, blinding me continuously from both my motorcycle RVMs. Eventually he stops alongside me at a traffic light. When I request him (very politely, mind you) to please switch to Lo-beam, he flips the switch dumbly multiple times, and says "It doesn't work, sorry yaar!", all the while maintaining the dumb expression, maybe from the latest Sallu flick. A case of intentional hardwiring of the electricals?

Maybe typecasting is the only thing keeping us sane every morning and evening. I cannot be required to be a responsible driver, obey the law, respect others' rights, etc etc and keep my temper in check against these jokers! They don't have medals for that yet. Shankar.balan, I totally understand your thoughts! Hats off for keeping it together! But I'd still say hats off if you'd lost it and bitten his head off :D