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

Quote:

Originally Posted by theflyingguy (Post 5284211)

Lesson learnt though. I would always check all four sides before getting in for rest of my driving life and I don't think I would ever be able to forget this.

Team-BHP taught me the same lesson years back. If I remember correctly, it was related to some puppies or kittens playing around near a parked car.

Since then, I make sure to check all sides before entering the car. It also helps to be aware of the tyre pressure.

Thanks for sharing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duckdoc (Post 5280628)

Overtaking from the left when there is no gap

We have one too many such morons on the road these days. Here is one from my recent drive to Chennai though it was not as bad your experience.

I was at the fag end of 5 hour drive when this Innova with a political flag was chasing a stream of well driven cars for 30 odd minutes flicking his his lights furiously and honking so that people can make way for him. Every time he came close to overtaking me the traffic would slow down cause of the diversions and he would fall a few cars behind and it would take him another 5 - 7 minutes to get behind me. This continued for half hour at which point he decided it was OK to overtake from a non-existent road in the left and veer into the right in a blind spot (@0:09). Since I was aware what he was doing, I was expecting him in the blind spot. If someone wasn't aware there is a clear chance for swide swiping followed by a possible rear ending.

You can see he continuous his crazy maneuvers later in the video too (@0:45). There are more videos of this crazy MUV doing stupid maneuvers recorded in the dash-cam but its simply not worth wasting our time over it.

https://youtu.be/BKi2VbrPS58

Here is another example of morons on road. This is on the electronic city flyover. While one genius is hanging out of the sunroof trying to get a selfie, the moron at the wheel is veering to the left (@0:16) unmindful of the oncoming traffic. I was doing 70 which is 10 less than the limit on this road. He almost put me to the wall and I had to sharply steer right to correct course. In a different time I would have stopped and given him a piece of my mind but I neither have the inclination nor the energy to do that anymore. Unfortunately the plates aren't clear else I would have tweeted it to the BTP folks.

https://youtu.be/-iKyvHahCoA

Quote:

Originally Posted by theflyingguy (Post 5284211)

as shown in the photo (red car was mine). As I started the car and turned on the headlight, the blue car behind me started honking and flashing incessantly. Does that make me a bad driver?

Why would you draw a car in side view and not in top view? This is out of the norm. I just can't unsee this.

No, this doesn't make you a bad driver but just a bit careless. I think we do check the back when we know we have to back the car at first, to judge how much space we have and the road condition(like a stone, rock, pothole or open manhole).

Thank you for sharing this. I too learnt this lesson the hard way. Just like you, I was reversing my car after some shopping, as someone had parallel parked his car right in front of mine. I was lucky that I only hit a parked kinetic honda right behind my car. Even though mine was a small hatchback, the scooter was parked so close to the car that it was not visible from any of the mirrors. There was a bystander right beside the parking space who did not care to alert me. But the fault lies with me for not checking my surroundings before moving my car and to some extent with the owner of the scooter. Luckily, there was no significant damage to any of the vehicle and the matter did not escalate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sohit15 (Post 5286277)

A lighter moment (I really don't mind being laughed at!)...

I always scoffed at reversing alarms, especially on small car. I told one salesman, who was trying to add on the addons, "It's a small car, and, I can drive!" But my current Polo has such an alarm, and yes, I have got used to using it.

One day I was parking in a large car park, reversing towards a wall. The alarm was chirping like crazy, but I could see that the wall was some way away so I kept on... and hit the tree stump. No damage done,except to my ego. It was the only such obstruction there, and I had chosen that spot. And chosen to ignore the alarm.

Hey ho, ego bruised, but I had to laugh at myself. And remind myself that next time it might not be a tree stump.

Quote:

Originally Posted by enj0y_ride (Post 5289964)

Here is a video that emerged in social media where someone did an unnecessary off-road manuevring in Compass, may be just to show off. Things just went out of hand. ( May be the driver turned to the road too soon ).

Looks like it's not in India ( but somewhere in LATAM ).

PS: youtube link is not mine. Just happened to see it and sharing .

https://youtu.be/H-UgsZ_AxqY

Just another Darwin award winner. An extra (genuine) award to the car salesperson who probably oversold the capabilities of this car too.

In India, we mostly say we know how to ride or drive, when we can accelerate, brake and know how to manoeuvre and direct the vehicle.

Communication with other road users, which involves giving timely appropriate signals to them and reading their signals, both, implicit and explicit, and acting according, including waiting patiently at times, is more important, in my personal opinion. Many drivers, who know how to drive or ride (in indian context) can get into accidents all on their own on empty roads because of their ignorance. I believe that skills of observations, including closely observing road signs, and tuning the muscles to subconciously respond in accordance to perceived threats to safety are equally important for overall safety, if not more, than the skills of driving or riding itself.

I have my checklist, which evolved over long period of time with experience and observations, of telltale signs of identifying ignorant and sometimes very dangerous safety behaviour of other road users if any one or more of following matches -

- Car having an accident from the driver side
- Broken or non-functional lights
- Driving with any of the doors open and 2 wheelers having their stands still engaged
- Too many visible accidents on body
- Folded wing mirrors
- Cannot see the Driver in the rear view mirrors of both car and bike they are driving or riding
- Elbow protruding too much out of car form driver side window
- Bike with no rear view mirrors
- Bike rider frequently aimlessly looking left and right for short periods
- Louder exhausts
- Highly blackened vehicle lights
- Turning without looking in mirrors

Whenever I see ignorant road user, I maintain a safe distance from them.

In my view, some road users are wrongly influenced by acts shown in movies or TV shows by some actors' and they imitate those acts on the roads putting lives of others at risk.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duckdoc (Post 5280628)

Overtaking from the left when there is no gap and avoidance almost made me hit the median. With vehicles behind, sudden braking was not an option.

A similar incident happened with a colleague a few weeks ago, although you were luckier than he was. He was driving a Wagon R and was diagonally behind an Omni which had broken down and was being pushed by two guys, similar positions as you and that pickup. Suddenly an Innova taxi came barreling through. While trying to squeeze through the gap between the Omni and Wagon R, it rammed the Omni and clipped the Wagon R on the front left fender before hitting the divider. The Omni flipped over and the guys who were pushing it got injured as well.
The Innova had no passengers but its interior was littered with empty beer bottles. Needless to say, the angry crowd that gathered gave the driver a good beating.

Yet another Lunatic on the road.

What do these guys even think while performing such stunts?

I really appreciate his level of confidence though, he knew I would stop and not hit him head on(I wish I could though). With a Tata Ace on the left land and a biker trying to squeeze in between us I had nowhere to go besides coming to a standstill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O7gsMwXojc