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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-78.html)

Drivers with one hand on the wheel and the other on the mobile. Bad driving is a reflection of many things. The greatest contributor is the system of getting driving licences anywhere in India. Stay at home, bribe someone and get the licence seems to be the motto. Worse, in villages, many tiny tots drive tractor trailers, water tankers, and so on with impuntiy, and no driving licence. Another big factor is the education levels of the drivers, most are semi literate and many hail from the rural areas. Case in point, take any Indicab driver who drives for an IT company. These guys are rash, reckless, usually from the villages, and the car is a weapon in their hands. They dont own it, so dont know the pain of repairs and maintenance. They can always get another job in developing India. Then, you have the sarkari drivers with Government cars. They think they own the road. Cop vehicles are not immune either. The buses that stop in the middle of the road, the private transport chaps who race in an attempt to garner more passengers - Kerala wallahs will be more familiar with the private versus government bus scenario and the competition therein for passengers. Then you have overloaded trucks, with helpers who have graduated to truck drivers. They are out of their element especially in the big bad city and tend to cause accidents. Then, the powerful Bajaj Pulsar wallah and others of his ilk who think nothing of overtaking from the left and cutting right immediately. The middle aged man with his wife and 4 kids and luggage on the scooter, all clinging on for dear life. The guys who carry mattresses in two wheelers and even the gardeners on the TVS who carry a whole bunch of grass. The milkman with his wobbling milk cans on the TVS Victor that make him a time bomb, the tech guys who carry monitors and CPUs while riding pillion. The lorries with long long pipes protruding out of them and a red rag for company. The guys who race in Bangy from Trinity Circle to Cubbon Park in the dead of night on bikes more than 1000 cc, same guys now moved to Hebbal Ring Road. In Mumbai, the Carter Road racers between cars and bikes. The trucks transporting Maruti and Hyundai cars, stay far away from them because they are extra long vehicles. The big truck overtaking at a blind corner on a ghat section or a hill climb, the State Transport buses -Blue Line in Delhi and PTC in Chennai -affectionately called Kollavan transport services. The private buses in Kerala who dont know the meaning of the word signal. All of these guys are bad drivers. Phew, that was a long list.

Basically it is the power that is corrupting, the power in your hands ( bike ) and feet ( cars & above ) for trucks, lesser said the better. Recently at Punjagutta, Hyderabad, where an underground sewer was being laid, in the night the contractor was regulating the traffic, since only one vehicle could pass at a time from the bottleneck, the truck drivers would not let anyone from left come through. When after waiting for a eon, the traffic behind me started honking, I found an opening to my right and tried to go forward, only to be bull-dozed by the truck coming from behind, who almost crushed my car, which suffered massive dents and lacerations, costing me a bomb to rectify. And the situation was such that in the effort to safeguard myself/my vehicle, I could not even take down his number plate data, the contractor was of no help either.

The owners of the trucks invest lakhs in the vehicle and people trust them for countless more lakhs for transporting their goods and who is entrusted with the safety??? The typical un-educated truck driver, who does not know even basic traffic rules and the 'bottle' is his only traffic guide with the intoxication of power, he simply goes around like a mad bull on the road and God save anybody coming in his rage. All his personal frustration and anger, he vents out on the accelerator.

I think even those who feel they know all the traffic rules will learn something they are not aware so far, if they click the above link. The page has many links. Each link opens up an animation and click all of them one by one. You will definitely appreciate them.

This link should be a pinned one.

Murthy

Doesn't that depend on which way around the roundabout you are going?


;)

I didn't understand the question. Can you please elaborate?

Did you see the animation?

Murthy

no, i don't think so. since it's "Keep Left" in India, any direction one comes from, one will use the left indicator to pull out of the round about.

IronH4wk, you missed my --> ;)

:)

^^ ;) here means clock-wise or counter-clockwise round-abouts, right?

was honking to a sumo yesterday for him to signal me for a pass, after seeing him not responding to my honking and pushing me a couple of times, inspected more and to my horror found no ORVM at all, saw a gap, went down 3 gears and left it for good
^was riding, so couldn't take pics

Near Wipro main gate in ECity there is a T-junction. (Right under the skywalk).
I had to turn right and was waiting for the cop's signal. Three cars behind a WagonR started honking. Then he took the extreme right and reached the junction. But he could go no further as there were oncoming vehicles. I rolled down and asked why he was driving so? He made some wild gestures and tried to squeeze in front of my car. I just moved forward three feet and stopped blocking the gap.
Finally even after the Go-signal from the cop he could move only after me and two more cars which were right behind me sticking to the right lane.

BTW, from my limited experience with Bangalore traffic, if I take a percentage of badly driven cars brand-wise, WagonR tops the list. Why is it?

While on our way to Indiranagar from Lal Bagh, we had a small problem in the form of a recklessly driven blue Zen. This fellow had kept his ORV-mirrors closed and was cutting us off several times. First, he cut across by overtaking from the left side (with only 50 meters of distance left till the flyover - that can accommodate only 1 car at a time) and then he kept braking hard in front of us and that left us fuming.

And then he slowed down to almost 10 km/h in the middle of the road and for absolutely no reason, holding up traffic in the process. We managed to get ahead of him but he caught up and almost edged us into the pavement!

P.S. Note the dings and dents all over the car!

Nice observation, ch.nathan. But, I thought Tata Indica cab drivers get the first place with very wide margin all over the country!:)

Agree with you 100%. Of course Cabs are the worst-driven vehicles (Not only Indica, also Sumo and Tempo travellers). They are in different league altogether.
There is absolutely no point in observing them. Just keep away.

Y'day another WagonR in Haralur road tailgated me for 10 minutes and overtook me on one of those triple speed-breakers and squeezed in front between me and a two-wheeler coming in the opposite direction.

An army of bad drivers. They are all waiting for the right turn at the T junction.

This one is about bike riders. If you observe someone using only the rear brake, stay a mile away from him!