Team-BHP - Bad Drivers - How do you spot 'em

A sense of surroundings by the drivers could have avoided such incidents. Imagine an emergency situation in a building, A life's value is more than the value of the car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shamegz (Post 4753203)

I found this mobile parking card which displays mobile number so that others can reach out to the car owner when emergency.
This might be helpful when parked at unknown places (best to carry during Road trips).

Attachment 1970912

The mobile parking card is a good idea as well. I would suggest that primarily to drivers like in the above circumstances lol:

The one breed of drivers whose members (almost) totally fall into the bad drivers category is school van drivers. The quality of recklessness shown by them is unmatched.

Every morning I drop my daughter by scooter to her school and on the way I encounter many school vans. These are typically driven at breakneck speeds and god forbid if you fail to get out of their way. All of these are Maruti Omnis whose safety rating is below 0.

Till date neither school authorities nor traffic police seem to be able to bring them to drive at sane speeds. Today itself I saw one van driver driving an omni full of children coming up the wrong way on the Pune-Bangalore highway just to save half a km and a few droplets of petrol.

On my way to office, there is a longish winding road with side lanes. One van driver came upto the main road at high speed without looking left or right. On hearing my horn scream loudly he braked with the van's non-existent nose jutting out of the lane. Everytime when I think of sending my daughter to school by van, I think of these drivers and drop the thought. It is either a school bus or parents/guardian drop and pick up for my daughter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by luvDriving (Post 4753777)

The one breed of drivers whose members (almost) totally fall into the bad drivers category is school van drivers. The quality of recklessness shown by them is unmatched.
...
It is either a school bus or parents/guardian drop and pick up for my daughter.

Very true. Even the school bus drivers are reckless. Most of them, if not all.

It is not only dangerous, but there is another big issue here. What the drivers are teaching the kids. Young kids learn what they see. Seeing driving carelessly, driving on wrong side etc create n impression on them that these are ok or acceptable things. And when they start driving they will follow this.

Last weekend I was coming back to Mumbai from Navi Mumbai. I was passing the Vashi bridge at the time of sunset. Believe me when I say that was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. The gigantic red hot sun seemed to be exactly at the center of the bridge, and I had a feeling that I am driving into the sunset. The unique design of newly installed street lamps was creating a mesmerizing pattern in the background.

I was driving into the right most lane, suddenly the traffic in front of me stopped. After few moments the vehicles in front of me started moving to middle lane. I thought some accident may have occurred, or a vehicle may have broke down. I saw a red color car parked with it's hazard lights on.

And my blood boiled when I looked inside that car. The gentleman at the driver's seat was busy in taking photographs, on the right most lane, on one of the busiest highways into the city.:Frustrati:Frustrati

Dashcam footage:

https://youtu.be/cChNiHzw38Q

I would like to highlight a common practise in metros. On several occasions, I have seen people taking right turn on a T junction from the right side of the road, they will start moving towards the right side of the road much before the junction and turn right, cutting across vehicles coming from right side and literally blocking the way of vehicles turning left. Ideally, they should have moved little ahead on the same left lane, look for traffic and take a right turn, there by not blocking vehicles turning left. Hope most of our members would have witnessed.

Added to this annoying behaviour, they throw an ugly look at the drivers on the right side as if they were blocking his/her way. It’s sad to see such behaviours/attitude from a well-educated and elite group from our society.

Not sure whether we call them bad drivers or ignorance of basic driving etiquettes. As a preventive measure, hope RTO officials give basic driving etiquettes to young generations applying for license and those who come for renewal.

I have generally seen this behaviour from two wheelers, but this is one rare occasion I’m seeing such genius behaviour in a car driver and that too a middle aged well dressed man.

The last time I saw this level of genius was a year or so back and then it was a Ford Endeavour coming into the wrong side of a T junction and into the path of my Scorpio. Luckily both of us braked in time or there’d surely have been an airbag efficiency test.

Quote:

Originally Posted by glovins2004 (Post 4756348)

Ideally, they should have moved little ahead on the same left lane, look for traffic and take a right turn, there by not blocking vehicles turning left. Hope most of our members would have witnessed.

Added to this annoying behaviour, they throw an ugly look at the drivers on the right side as if they were blocking his/her way. It’s sad to see such behaviours/attitude from a well-educated and elite group from our society.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hserus (Post 4756344)

About half an hour back, it was my dubious pleasure to encounter this genius who seems to be under the impression that he’s in the USA rather than India

Hello hserus, Very true. Looks like all boils down to the attitude that always others will budge, over a period of time this becomes a habit and an expectation. Hope people will change and make our roads safer and stress free to drive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hserus (Post 4756359)

I have generally seen this behaviour from two wheelers, but this is one rare occasion I’m seeing such genius behaviour in a car driver and that too a middle aged well dressed man.

Oh, this is all too common in Bangalore. Unless I'm really pressed for time, I don't reverse like you did. I just sit there, pretending to not understand what the genius is saying - and sooner or later others would pile up behind me making it practically impossible for me to reverse anyway.

Btw, your bonnet seems to be taking up a large section of your dashcam viewport?

Quote:

Originally Posted by binand (Post 4756434)

Btw, your bonnet seems to be taking up a large section of your dashcam viewport?

I noticed when I saw the footage. The mount has a height adjustment screw that was a bit loose allowing the cam to droop.

As for backing up, I was with my family and my wife was against the idea of my asking the guy whether he’d got his driving license free in a packet of lays chips.

I was on holiday both from Chennai and from driving for a few days, flying to Madurai, and being driven to Theni and Megamalai. Mostly, I was favourably impressed by the driving standards away from my hometown, although of course there was a sprinkling of idiots to add spice to the mix.

There is a new road up to Megamalai, and it is superb. I always say that I am scared to do mountain driving, because I will never drive on a road that has nothing between me and a sheer drop. No such worries on this road! Barriers all the way, and the hairpins are well constructed, and even have markings to indicate ideal track. The traffic was pretty light anyway, although it was a little busier on the way down, yesterday, being weekend. Here though, is an example of idiocy that I just comprehend the why of it. We were going down; the hairpin was to our left. The biker was coming up; the hairpin was to his right... and he took it on our side of the road.

In fact, he took his right hairpin on his far right side of the road. Who would do that? Who would give themselves a very sharp, acute angle to turn, when on their own side they can take a gentle turn? Why? On foot, it would save twenty or thirty paces: is it that these people can't tell the difference between feet and wheels?

Just Why? :confused:

By the way: I would have loved to have taken my Polo up, and down, that road. I would not have loved the hours of driving to reach it. Well, I might have, but my stamina would not have been up to it.

And off-topic, we called our usual to-the-Chennai-airport guy, who said, "I can't take you: I am in Madurai." So we had him meet us at Madurai airport and drive us there :D

Driving on the wrong side of the road is plague which we are dealing on Indian roads; it is not only extremely dangerous for people coming on the right side of the road following the road rules but also has a cascading effect on the people who see it. Its a mindset mostly without a gain - most often people end up waiting for similar time for the people to pass in turn actually spending as much time and fuel.

In this particular scenario, I saw this gentleman coming out of a newly constructed posh society on Hopefarm-hoskote road in Bangalore and instead of driving some 30-50m to take a proper U-turn chose to drive on the wrong side of the road drove almost similar distance the other side and joined the other side. Mind you, this road is only wide enough to accommodate 2 cars at a time in a direction. I really wish I had stopped him and handed over a Rs 10 currency note to cover up the loss of fuel/money he had in his mind.

Worst of all, this gentleman (who looked young educated) was also donning a TEAM-BHP sticker on his car. I was saddened me to see this - I really hope it was someone who in not a member and just bought off the sticker and posted it on his car. We talk of such high standards using our keyboards it will really be disheartening to find he is a member of this esteemed forum.

[Location : Red Rhino on whitefield-hoskote road]