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

I had a bad experience an hour or so ago on the East Coast Road, Chennai. I was out testing the brakes on my RE Electra, after a fellow BHPian asked me to loosen the nut. There was quite a bit of traffic towards Pondicherry (because of New Year's), and I made sure I kept to the left shoulder of the road.

A Baleno driving on the right lane suddenly braked a tad, the passenger seat window came down, and out they tossed an empty tender-coconut. I had noticed the Baleno coming as I keep an eye on the mirrors due to being out for testing my brakes. However, though I tried to out-maneuver the speeding shell, it hit my crash-guard, then went under the rear tire leading to severe wobbling. It was a good thing I was going at barely 30 KPH on the left extreme, and other vehicles were quite some distance away, so I was able to stop the bike without much issue.

It however did leave me severely rattled, and I felt like speeding behind the car at the same time. In the end, common sense prevailed and I came back home making a mental note of the various projectiles one has had to avoid while on Indian roads.

At a roundabout, a biker decides to overtake my car from the left when I had to turn left; I had my indicator turned on and he narrowly misses the barricade.

https://youtu.be/On77muOqlA4

After he makes that manoeuvre, he slows down and stares at my car for a good time as I watched him from the rear view mirror.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gannu_1 (Post 4966748)

At a roundabout, a biker decides to overtake my car from the left when I had to turn left; I had my indicator turned on and he narrowly misses the barricade.

The most pathetic driver I have seen. His family would have been in to their 3rd day mourning :Frustrati

Just before the new year's eve, I had gone for a short evening ride on my Ntorq.

I was approaching a T-junction and there is a speedbreaker just before the turn. Now the road is located in a residential area and is quite busy throughout the day. A teen, wearing earphones, who I'm very sure isn't legally allowed to be on the roads was doing quite good speeds for the road. The sun was setting and the visibility was reducing but that was nothing to the teen on his Yamaha Ray. He held his smartphone in his left hand, was giving full throttle via his right hand and the next thing we both knew, the speedbreaker was infront.

The teen panic-breaked and the rear wheels of his Ray locked up. Thank god he maintained his balance and did not fall over. Remeber his smartphone? It fell to the ground and he had to stop to recover. I did not stop as nothing "big" really happened.

What a coincidence! Just received this link from my friend. This was at highway speeds on a flyover in Hyderabad!

If not for the skills and attentiveness of the driver, the scooter fellow would have made headlines on the newspaper!:Frustrati

http://youtu.be/uUTsgbCVjpU

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joshua_Ray (Post 4969404)

What a coincidence! Just received this link from my friend. This was at highway speeds on a flyover in Hyderabad!

This is on the recently inaugurated flyover, near goddess Durga temple in Vijayawada (NH-65).

I have already forwarded the footage to cops and they responded promptly.

Bad Drivers - How do you spot 'em-screenshot_20210104145945_whatsapp.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gannu_1 (Post 4966748)

After he makes that manoeuvre, he slows down and stares at my car for a good time as I watched him from the rear view mirror.

That's what they always do. They never do any wrong in their mind, they can go anywhere from anywhere but the bigger vehicle should yield to them at all times, the right of way and physics be damned. In the same video, you can see another two wheeler going straight from the left lane.

Quote:

Originally Posted by naveen.raju (Post 4970062)

The cyclist might have had his heart in his mouth.

Absolutely.

I cycle a little and idiots like the fellow on the bike are a damn menace on the roads. Sadly the fellow will not even understand why his riding style is wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by venkyhere (Post 4969903)

I call this the "weekend warrior" phenomenon on NH that are connected directly with big cities - blore, chennai, hyd, tvm, kochi etc... people not regular on highways, who are used to "see gap, fill gap" in city driving, swarm the highways on saturday morning and sunday evening/night. You can figure out "weekend warrior" drivers from just the way they accelerate and brake - the driving will be completely unsmooth and jerky. Typical example => When you have already eased off the throttle, after seeing the 45 kph lorry trying to overtake the 44 kph lorry, 100m ahead ; Swifts/i10s/i20s etc will be flying past you at 120 kph and then brake like mad only when they are 10m near to the two lorries. Also, the honking will be mad as well, even if they can see that the 45 kph lorry can't go any faster due to his load.

I'd include the group of CUVs (Brezza, Creta, Duster, EcoSport, Nexon etc) as well - sporting a big city registration number. The rental SUVs on weekends deserve special mention - often times driven by some nut with hardly any experience driving, let alone handling a 2 tonne behemoth that behaves a lot different from a sub 1000kg hatchback at speed.

https://youtu.be/HFVp7zJL6NU

Instead of going ahead a few seconds to make a U-Turn, our hero here decides to turn and ride in the face of oncoming traffic! (Me)

And yes, the flashing of his light made me vanish into thin air...Poof!

You can see the place to take a turn towards the end of the video. It was that near.

If there was an award for an ensemble of Bad Drivers, what I saw today would have the best chance of winning.

NH-44, meet morons. At the end of the bridge on the other side, is a railway overpass where there was some cabling work that was going on due to which Traffic was flowing in a staggered manner. There were a few chaps that were controlling the flow of traffic.

Now, I don't know which moron decided that it was best to take a U-turn where people don't drive below 80, he also deserves to win an individual award for the sales pitch that got others to follow him in this act of stupidity. Might I say, he might be a revolutionary.

Fortunately, nothing happened.

In over 25 years of driving on Indian roads, I thought I'd seen it all but last night's incident took the cake.

I was out on Sus-Pashan road looking for an ATM. This is a pretty wide 6-laned stretch of road with light traffic most times and it's also a residential area so I was going quite slowly...thankfully as it turned out. There was a scooter with a pillion rider in the slow lane and I was slightly behind them in the middle lane.

Suddenly I see a dog on a chain running between the scooter and myself and then I see the poor animal get dragged for a while before the scooter comes to a halt. I slow down, in total shock, with no clue as to what was going on. And then it dawned on me: the idiot driving the scooter had chained his pet dog's leash to the handlebars. The dog either slipped or jumped off the moving vehicle and the chain tightened momentarily, dragging it for a few metres before the man was able to brake fully.

I took a deep breath, made a "What the hell is wrong with you?" gesture through my closed passenger side window and carried on my way. Other passersby were already chastising the man for his foolishness.

I hope that poor dog is OK. It certainly deserves better owners.