[engrohit]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Hazards are supposed to make a vehicle conspicious and hence avoid accidents, so switching them on when waiting on a busy street seems ok to me.

I agree with you to a large extent. I use hazard lights when I stop at Godrej signals at EEH (Mumbai) in nights. Usually people do not stop there at night and vehicles travel at significantly higher speeds, thus every possibility of someone banging you from behind.
Regarding tunnels, I guess that reduces visibility for cars behind.

[Binzone]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Not necessarily! Switching on hazards in a tunnel and rains is not correct, although large no of drivers are now doing it and some state's police advocate the same, however hazards while reversing is a feature which comes with several cars on which autocop/security system is retrofitted.

Hazards are supposed to make a vehicle conspicious and hence avoid accidents, so switching them on when waiting on a busy street seems ok to me.

I completely subscribe to this view. Its just to say watch me a tad more than you would expect from normal traffic. I feel this does help when reversing a parked car out of the lot, on to a busy street.

Of course, it starts becoming pointless when everyone switches it in during rains etc, resulting in dangerous distraction, and confusion.

[Dodge_Viper]

How about this one?
We had gone for a trek and while coming back took a jeep. IIRC it was one of those MM series without doors, with middle row seating as well. I am not sure how many seater that jeep was, but I had counted 19 people stuffed in. And guess where would be that 19th person located. Not even in my remotest imagination I would see this scene.

Let the picture do the talking.


Narrow roads, oncoming traffic and this guy half dangling out of jeep. Wonder how the driver managed to drive.

[Dodge_Viper]

Originally Posted by W.A.G.7

Bad drivers or 'Parkers' in Pune. The sign says parking only for 2 wheelers. But Puneri Punekars have a penchant for not obeying any traffic rule at all !

No offense meant to all those who obey the rules, but some people create a bad name for everyone. This was taken near Fergusson college, outside Hotel Roopali.
A few more inches higher and he would have snagged a branch above on the tree...

Rightly said W.A.G.7. One can never predict how the car in front of you will behave, or from which corner of earth a biker will cross you haphazardly. Poor pedestrians have to look both ways even on a one-way road

[apachelongbow]

Originally Posted by Dodge_Viper

How about this one?
We had gone for a trek and while coming back took a jeep. IIRC it was one of those MM series without doors, with middle row seating as well. I am not sure how many seater that jeep was, but I had counted 19 people stuffed in. And guess where would be that 19th person located. Not even in my remotest imagination I would see this scene.
Narrow roads, oncoming traffic and this guy half dangling out of jeep. Wonder how the driver managed to drive.

Its a usual sight in most of rural Maharashtra. Used to be more common until new 6 seater three wheelers and Tata ace and Mahindra small people movers stepped in.
These ancient Mahindra jeeps used to run on bald, narrow cross ply tyres, which used to slip during braking and aquaplane merrily in rains.

[Dodge_Viper]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Its a usual sight in most of rural Maharashtra. Used to be more common until new 6 seater three wheelers and Tata ace and Mahindra small people movers stepped in.
These ancient Mahindra jeeps used to run on bald, narrow cross ply tyres, which used to slip during braking and aquaplane merrily in rains.

Yes, agree to this. But the above case was shocking for me. How dangerous it will get when a state transport bus whizzes past that jeep. And we know how close shave it is when a bus crosses on such narrow roads.

[SDP]

^^^ I have seen 4-5 people seating on top of the jeep as well.
Here's a pic from Bhandardara:

[rajeev k]

Saw this baddie today, was carrying a load of conduit pipes tied to the b pillar. Very dangerous; not to him but to other road users.

[arun_josie]

Alto, Folded ORVMs on both the sides.



On BG Road near IBM office.





This guy lost his balance while taking left but still continued with the call

[deathwalkr]

yes his mobile call is more important than his life :(

wonder how hard it could be to park on the side. finish call. move on with life.

[apachelongbow]

speaking on the mobile phone while driving/riding is the worst habit of all, and reflects the callous attitude of a poor driver. This is offense no 1 in my books, worse than being dead drunk and speeding even.

Even bluetooth equipped car, headsets etc, still remove your attention from the road, since mentally you are with your wife/girlfriend/friend/office meeting etc, depending on whom you are conversing with, this much distraction is enough to promote unsafe driving and cause accidents.

Its high time govt bans all kinds of mobile communication in a moving vehicle, only person not driving may use the mobile phones.

[carzone]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Its high time govt bans all kinds of mobile communication in a moving vehicle, only person not driving may use the mobile phones.

Bingo, but I was a victim of this. A friend wanted to charge his phone while I was driving. In the WagonR, the charging slot is right above the drivers left knee and hence I told him that I would insert the charger in the socket. Doing that a police officer caught me saying that I was using the phone!
No amount of argument/requests makes him believe that I did not even touch the phone. What happened after that is another story. Isn't inserting a charger into a socket same as using a phone?

[AbhishekB86]

Make up sessions need not be on the move. I have been observing women using the rear view mirror to touch up on their lipstick, fix their hair or to admire themselves. Recently a colleague tilted the mirror towards her to see if her hair was fine.

This is dangerous. But the worst I have seen till date was a lady holding the phone and using the rear view to check her appreance while driving on the ring road. Wonderwoman for sure

[sara.ramli]

Originally Posted by AbhishekB86

Make up sessions need not be on the move. I have been observing women using the rear view mirror to touch up on their lipstick, fix their hair or to admire themselves. Recently a colleague tilted the mirror towards her to see if her hair was fine.

This is dangerous. But the worst I have seen till date was a lady holding the phone and using the rear view to check her appreance while driving on the ring road. Wonderwoman for sure

Tell me about that. One day, I see a lady in the front passenger seat doing this, in a car ahead of me on the road and I go livid. A couple of days later, a colleague riding along, does almost something similar - uses the left ORVM to check if her hairdo is intact. I tell her about the previous incident that I witnessed and pat came the reply - "yeah I too do it many times, when I travel with my hubby and he goes insane". Why wouldn't he?

I then gently point her to the sun-visor mirror on the passenger side and she realises that she could have used that.

[swarnava.m]

This post is a confession. I became a bad driver on thursday. A very bad one at that.

I was travelling from Ponda to Margao. For those who know, this was on the downward slope just before Top-Cola.

I was driving at around 40-45, going downhill. Gentle slope. The road has no divider. I was closer to the white painted line than the left side of the road. Slightly ahead and slightly to the left was a blue M800. I was engrossed in a conversation with the passenger. Without noticing, I had moved a little too much to the right. i.e., center of the road. I was in a position to overtake the M800 very easily, but the road curves right exactly at that point and as luck would have had it, there was an oncoming bus.

By then, my position was such that if I had to swerve back left, I would probably have clipped the M800's rear right corner. I had no option but to keep going straight and do my best to squeeze through between the car and the bus. I did manage it finally, but it was extremely close. As I went ahead and looked in my RVM, I could see that the M800 had swiftly swerved left, if only as a measure of prevention. The speed had also slowed down considerably. My guess is that it was more of a panic situation for that guy since it happened partly behind and partly right next to him, and he had no idea of what was happening when there was another car so dangerously close to his.

Dude, I don't know who you are, but if you ever read this, please accept my whole-hearted apologies. It was completely my mistake. I know I should have been more careful and kept my attention on the road rather than letting myself get distracted. That is the lesson I will take away from this incident and make sure I stay a careful and safe driver in future. I also sincerely thank my stars that I made it through and nothing unfortunate took place. Sorry again!!

I also apologize if someone feels it is inappropriate for me to post this here, but this has been mentally troubling me ever since. Especially being a BHPian, I feel it is a bigger responsibility for me to drive safe. I just felt like speaking out and confessing here, and make sure that something of this sort does not happen again.