[Soumyajit9]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

Mr. Balan. R on his silver Alto with registration number KL 02 AC 131.

Apologies, but I didn't understand the "Mr. Balan" part. Do you know the owner / driver of the vehicle ?
If yes, may be you should talk to him personally, apart from filing the Traffic complaint.

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by Soumyajit9

Apologies, but I didn't understand the "Mr. Balan" part. Do you know the owner / driver of the vehicle ?
If yes, may be you should talk to him personally, apart from filing the Traffic complaint.

No, I don't know him. The name of the registered owner is available in the site of Kerala Motor Vehicle Dept. against the registration number of the car. I went to the site to confirm the car after the incident and then I preferred to address that fellow by his name than use some adjectives.

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Why do we drive the slowest on the right lane? Because many of us are taught to.

Interesting point. I think this was completely missed by all the contributors in this thread.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...s-slowest.html

[naveenroy]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

another public awareness video - ze NGEF bypass

Holy! Do you travel on this road everyday? I pity you. 0:50 secs into the video is just insane! I mean, what do they expect to happen? Oncoming traffic to miraculously disappear?

But on the other hand, why didn't they even make that a 4 lane road, considering that it is supposed to be a feeder road to the railway station!

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by naveenroy

Holy! Do you travel on this road everyday? I pity you. 0:50 secs into the video is just insane! I mean, what do they expect to happen? Oncoming traffic to miraculously disappear?

But on the other hand, why didn't they even make that a 4 lane road, considering that it is supposed to be a feeder road to the railway station!

i hear that stretch has now been made one way between 8am and 11am. some traffic management! what they don't realise is that they're sending double the amount of traffic through the other signals and that will definitely cause more traffic gridlocks.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

i hear that stretch has now been made one way between 8am and 11am. some traffic management! what they don't realise is that they're sending double the amount of traffic through the other signals and that will definitely cause more traffic gridlocks.

We can only wish that these decisions are taken based on stats/data of traffic patterns and volumes. Instead, they are just taken at the drop of a hat without even considering the possible outcomes. It may very well be reversed soon. Remember the manual traffic signal on the Richmond road-Residency road flyover ?

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by NPV

Remember the manual traffic signal on the Richmond road-Residency road flyover ?

As bad as that was, the current setup that replaced it is worse. The one lane each side setup on the Shantinagar TTMC side is a nightmare most times of the day, and the up ramp from the Lalbagh Road side that drops towards the school district is always blocked by traffic waiting at the Langford Road junction. Getting to the school district and beyond has become a total nightmare. I spent 40 mins getting from Shantinagar TTMC to Bishop Cotton a couple times last week.

[Bigzero]

Today morning, on the way to office.

I pulled up behind a car at a signal, keeping a reasonably good gap as I usually do . I could see tyres of the car in front. I try to keep that distance, and sometimes two-wheelers squeeze in, but this time that space was boxed by a car on the left and the median on the right, so no chance of that happening.

The queue builds up behind us quickly, and I can see a Vento right behind me, perhaps inches away from my rear fender, honking repeatedly.

I give the "what?" gesture, peering through my IRVM. I could see the driver gesticulating. I realize that he is asking me to roll forward closer to the car in front. I dont see any reason to do that, as the light is still red, and some time to go for green.

The driver steps out and approaches me. I roll down the window a few inches ( dont know what might ensue, so didnt want to take too many chances.

Its a driver - his malik is sitting in his backseat - "why have you stopped here? there is space in front, why dont you move forward"? he asks in a very irritated tone.

"The traffic is not moving, we are at a red light, what difference will it make? what is your problem with this?"

He doesnt say anything, glares at me for a second and goes back to his car. I stay put. I could see him shaking his head and talking (perhaps to his boss ) at the wheel. I ignore him.

Our lane has to take a right turn into main road, and as I expected, once the light turned green and I was onto the middle of the intersection, he whizzes past me aggressively.

I let him go - cant hope to change people in one conversation - clearly he thought he has missed out a great deal by not being a couple of meters ahead at a traffic signal.

Wonder what his owner must have been thinking.

[luvDriving]

Originally Posted by Bigzero

The driver steps out and approaches me.
.

This kind of behavior is increasing day by day. I have had the same experiences. Once I was approaching the Rajaram bridge junction coming from over the bridge towards Sinhagad road. The signal countdown had reached 3 seconds as I was reaching the zebra crossing strip and there was a queue ahead of me.

Since I did not want to be caught in the middle of the crossing, I stayed put which infuriated one biker behind me. He kept honking and I made the mistake of looking at him into the RVM. Maybe he thought that I was challenging him or something.

He put his vehicle on the side stand and came up to my window. He kept telling me that I was crazy to stop and I kept telling him that the crossing was already crowded and if I had gone ahead, I would have been stuck with cross traffic because that traffic was already on its way.

He went back cursing me.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Bigzero

Wonder what his owner must have been thinking.

Not thinking. Not thinking is the cause of a lot of bad driving.

I was ranting at my poor wife a couple days ago, when three bikes were parked exactly opposite a pile of building rubble on an otherwise empty, but narrow, lane! I was asking her, what is it like inside these people's heads? To live in a world that simply does not extend beyond the tips of their own noses?

Poor wife; she often has to put up with this sort of thing from me!

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Poor wife; she often has to put up with this sort of thing from me!

You're not alone

I've toned it down over the years though. If I hadn't, I'd be constantly ranting given the insane traffic on our roads, and it will only get worse. I now try to see the funny side (extremely hard sometimes though) and have a giggle with the better half rather than spoil the mood for both of us. It does help that she takes the lead on ranting occasionally at a deserving Darwin Award candidate, and doesn't mind rolling down her window and letting her feelings be known to the offender. It's quite a sight

[naveenroy]

Originally Posted by Bigzero

The driver steps out and approaches me. I roll down the window a few inches ( dont know what might ensue, so didnt want to take too many chances.

It is incidents like these that make me think of our "wiring" as such. Is something seriously wrong with the way we are getting on with our lives? That there is NO way that I will look at something from the other person's point of view. That there are rules to be actually followed? That we can be courteous? I get too philosophical with my friends too about topics like this

[Bigzero]

Originally Posted by luvDriving

This kind of behavior is increasing day by day.

I agree!

On hindsight, I realize the mistake I made - I should not have responded with a gesture or a look through the mirror. Similar to what you experienced, this seems to have escalated the tension a bit :-)

I try to ignore morons on the road, but sometime it just comes out.. :-(

The other day, I was driving at a decent clip on a 4 lane road, and had a moron on a bike coming at the opposite direction on the slow lane. I was already stressed on seeing this bloke coming the wrong way, and was keeping to my lane, reducing the speed a bit. All of a sudden this guy attempts a U turn in front of me coming at 90 degrees, half of his bike into my lane! I stood on the brakes to avoid hitting him, and a poor Verna right behind me did a brilliant job of avoiding rear-ending me too. I remember rolling down the window and shouting at him... The bike guy fled, perhaps thanking his stars.

Stuff happens on the road. Sometimes you just get unlucky I guess.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by naveenroy

It is incidents like these that make me think of our "wiring" as such. Is something seriously wrong with the way we are getting on with our lives? That there is NO way that I will look at something from the other person's point of view. That there are rules to be actually followed? That we can be courteous?

Consideration. Courtesy. Decency. Empathy. These words are all hiding out in the dictionary, afraid to show their faces on our roads.

I agree with your question/rant about our wiring - people get unduly worked up over petty stuff. Most of us on this thread don't fully understand why - is it stress? Egos? Jealousy? Resentment? I suspect it is most/all of these.

[Kumar R]

Originally Posted by Bigzero

Today morning, on the way to office....

I could see the driver gesticulating. I realize that he is asking me to roll forward closer to the car in front. I dont see any reason to do that, as the light is still red, and some time to go for green.

Like these guys in front of me who wanted to get a starting 'edge' so they formed their own starting line. You can see the rest of the vehicles (including a surprisingly patient mini-truck) queued up in my ORVM.

Originally Posted by deetjohn

I am really worried that people waiting in the queue will soon get sick of seeing more smart Balans and before we know it, the traffic situation will get worse.

Here are some folks who decided to start another lane on the wrong side of the road, bypassing the physical barriers. What is unfortunate is that the road here is barely two lanes on each side and by doing this they have created a serious problem for oncoming traffic. Unfortunately the Traffic Police do not help matters by permitting additional lanes after the signal turns green - but in this instance these cars decided to pre-empt the cops.



Contrast this with a day on which no such clever drivers are present. This is the same stretch - you can see how narrow it is and what a difference it would make if another lane came up to my right.