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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-399.html)

Pizza delivery companies need to ease the pressure on the young kids hired to deliver. Because of the immense pressure they break rules and put themselves in danger. All for the sake of avoiding giving a pizza for free to the customer several times through the day lives are put at risk.

Delhi visibility is going for a toss with the fog and when street lights aren't working this can significantly reduce visibility. Caught a delivery guy trying to join the right most lane from a median. Thankfully since my focus was entirely on the road I passed without any issue. However, I fear if someone is on the phone or distracted while talking to a co-passenger he can end up killing one of these boys.

High time authorities give a warning to Pizza Hut and the likes.

Many Pizza brands have done away with the 30 minutes delivery guarantee. I think it is a good move. We (as customers) are also equally responsible for this. Because many of us want to enjoy free pizzas.

Here is an interesting read.
http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-y...fe-252089.html

Sorry for going OT. I tend to hold the gear lever knob while I am driving . I guess I find it as a position to relax my left hand as my car lacks an arm rest .

I have been driving like this , the same car for the last 15 years ! Never knew it was a bad habit and causes wear , though I have not noticed anything to my car .

I am also interested to know more on this . Can you please point me to the discussion you had on this forum

One of the reason my brother, who recently migrated to Australia, failed in driving test was taking left hand from steering to adjust seatbelt for a fraction of second. He got his Aus driving license after 6 failed attempts. :)

I still believe it's a blessing in disguise to have had multiple opportunities to reappear for driving test overseas. I have been in the same boat with multiple driving attempts and at least a couple read ups of the 'Dept of Motor Vehicles' handbook.

Some of the habits cultivated during those tests have been life savers for me and perhaps other drivers in my way time and again. Things such as taking a quick look at intersection by turning your head around, looking over shoulders to catch object in blind spot behind are some of the things one would never want to give up as habits how much ever obsessive they might sound! Things such as giving right of way to other vehicles on Indian road are hard to abide by until we have good signage posted and until we all learn and remember to use these signs. During two of the attempts my tests were abruptly over specifically for not performing these checks.

Thanks MaxTorque for the interesting read. However the article only stressed on the dangers faced by delivery boys. I am not aware of any pizza brand having done away with this insanity but if they have good on them. A very good comment on the article concludes saying

"You just can't develop one side while the other side does not contribute - read infrastructure"

That is so true. With the nature of our traffic and our roads which can cause unexpected delays these boys take big risks. The fellow who was crossing the median was doing so because the next U-turn was about a km away and he had to go across. Also it is highly unethical to deduct from a delivery boy's salary over things he has no control over (read unexpected traffic jams, bad roads etc).

The worst combination would be a reckless driver colliding with a stressed out delivery boy. The outcome as we can all imagine would either be a close shave or a bad accident.

As is evident bad drivers are made because of very tight deadlines. The choice is between being a bad driver (risking your life) vs risking your salary. Indeed a difficult one.

Hi R.G

Me too does it sometimes (thinking of getting the seat with the armrest console)
sometimes we tend to exert pressure on the gear lever and this indirectly may case the lever to intervene with the gear wheel teeth and thus may cause some friction or uneven pressure (possibly when we tend to press the accelarator or sometimes just fidget with the lever in drive mode)

Cheers

I agree that it is unethical. But I remember reading on Domino's menu that they do not punish their delivery boys in any way for late deliveries. I do not know how much of that is true, though. In my opinion, if delivery boys are caught breaking some rules, the restaurant's manager should be punished. This would, I believe, ensure that they drive safely.

When my father used to teach me driving back in the day i used to get whacked on the head everytime i took my left hand off the steering wheel and rested on the gear knob. stupid: But i presumed it was for better control of the car and not for wear and tear.

But now not so much. I get a better rhythm with one hand on the gear knob but on highways if i am doing triple digit speeds then its both hands on the wheel.

In fact in India driving tests are not taken seriously both by learners and the authorities. Driving with one hand, not holding the steering in V position, turning our head instead of using side mirrors and rear view mirror and more importantly abruptly stopping the vehicle and getting down from it without parking it properly are all signs of bad driving and will lead to turning down license request while taking tests. Good parking sense, reverse driving and understanding signages are all part of good driving habbits. Even smooth release of clutch while driving is considered to be part of good driving habbit! In some countries driving habbits are monitored for some time even after issue of license and the issuing authority is questioned in case of accidents immediately after licence approval.

Look at the sheer number of violations perpetrated by this vehicle which I saw near Aishwarya Supermarket in Koramangala today.
1. No number plates at all on the trailer or even on the tractor. I could not photograph the tractor though as I was alone.
2. 3 people perched on the tractor cab.
3. The container is very precariously perched on the trailer as you can see and is supported on one side by stones.
4. No secure fastening harness.
5. Bald tyres

If our stupid Bangalore traffic cops and RTO authorities would just open their eyes they would go after such guys rather than impose silly things about horns, sun film, out of town car registration plates etc.

Note the traffic cop cutting right across the road too. Other than this there was a khaki clad 3 star sergeant also who went by blissfully uninterested in this!

First we need safe roads for the tax payers!

You have a misconception that traffic police is there to enforce traffic rules. the sole purpose of the traffic police is to maximize revenue generation through soft targets. And an salaried employee in a car is the softest target.
That is why you will see traffic police happily challaning cars doing 91 in 90kmph zone, but completely ignore tractor trailers coming on the wrong side of the highway at night without headlights.

The advice to hold the steering with both hands would have been with the manual steering. But does it apply equally to the power steering too?

I understand it is recommended, but well I cannot really justify why I would like to drive with one hand other than the fact that I need to keep changing gears in b2b traffic

Darn. There goes my imitation of the Vin Diesel driving style :uncontrol

That's absolutely harrowing!. Imagine if it hit a large pothole, would definitely wake up the people sleeping in the afternoon in Chennai! Indian jugaad at its best!

Yes, I believe that it does. Along with the correct two-handed steering techniques, which actually work very well.

It's all about maximum control.

Also, if you have two hands on the wheel, removing one of them, where necessary, means that the other is still there: there is no changing hands.

There must be many occasions when my 'other' hand moves, automatically, to the wheel, for some two-handed steering, but, as I have already admitted, a lot of the time it is not there.