[Wheeliej]

that tata elxsi one on the way to itpl gets me angry every single day.... thats the one where the drivers come OUT the wrong side also and there are always trucks parked there; so the ONLY lane gets blocked for people trying to go down the right side of the road. AND there is a weighing station on the opposite side of that very road.... so we have a problem on both sides.....

i once stopped right in the middle of the road so that a tempo would not go down the wrong side and was feeling really happy when the tempo guy turned around and went down the correct side. Then i realised that the tempo had turned around since there was a BIG BMTC bus standing right behind me and that was what made the tempo turn around!!! it was good, though, to have support from a BMTC bus - for once

[muni]

oh yea ...the smelly BCC lorries ruin ur day. They invariably seem to have used the same road to your office. You have that sublime aroma all over the place. It is just a bad dejavu which tends to happen once in a couple of months ( no stats pls!)

The best bet is the bikes and i use me bike on all possible surfaces . I rarely use our Car during week days which has scratches all over the body ( thanks to my bretheren). Poor little thing it wasnt her fault.

[theMAG]

Wheeliej/Himanshu,

Can I have your personally signed autograph please, on your next New York Times bestseller ?!

[Samurai]

Well written article!

In a surprising observation, many auto drivers refuse 1.5 times the meter reading after 10 PM if you are exiting from Ranga Shankara. This is their humble way of commemorating their favorite star who made films like Auto-Raja.

That's interesting, although I am not surprised, the Karnataka auto drivers still worship Shankar Nag for making a movie with auto driver as hero. For people who don't know Ranga Shankara was Shankar Nag's dream and was turned into reality by his wife after his death in 1990.

A typical auto drive sits with a calm and indifferent attitude of a formula-1 driver just before the race. Based on his age, he is a Rajkumar/Shankarnag/Darshan fan. He feels strongly towards these actors and towards Karnataka and Kannada.

I had first hand experience of this. Me and couple of my relatives were travelling in an Auto and were speaking in our mother tongue Tulu. The auto driver turned up the volume on his noisy stereo playing some Kannada song. It was so loud we couldn't hear each other. Couple of times I tapped his shoulder and signalled to lower the sound volume since there was no way he could hear me speak. He just ignored me. Next when he stopped at a signal, I leaned forward and loudly commanded him in chaste Bangalore dialect Kannada to lower the volume. He quickly switched it off and turned around with a big smile. He said "Sorry, I was thinking you were outsiders since you were talking in some strange language". Then I told him we were speaking Tulu, which is one of the state languages. He further apologized and become very friendly. He thought it was perfectly okay to bug outsiders. Then for the next 30 minutes he lectured us on qualities of filmstar Dharshan, most of the time he was facing us instead of the road.

[Wheeliej]

Had another face-off experiences with a tempo driver close to Bimal last night.

For those who dont know Bangalore or Whitefield road very well : this is a two-lanes-on-each-side with a high median and median breaks every 150-200 metres (generally NOT aligned to any commercial complex - which means that people have to go a bit ahead and take a U turn to get into the premises they wish to - which generally they dont want to do, meaning they move opposite the traffic approximately half the time)

There is a wide break in the median in front of the Bimal (Maruti) showroom and barely 10 metres after that is a left turn into a tiny lane. Last night past 9.30, i was passing by there on a road with moving traffic when all of a sudden a tempo emerges from this left lane and stops facing me right in front of my car. It is soooo irritating to then negotiate to the left lane to allow the other vehicle to go in the opposite (read 'wrong') direction. But i decided that i would not do that. I wanted the tempo to turn around and take a U turn at the next break in median; so i braked; turned the headlights into parking lights mode and refused to budge. Both vehicles stood like that for about a minute with the driver signalling me to go from the left and me not moving. After a minute or so, i got lucky and a truck came up and quietly stood behind my car (there wasnt enough place for the truck to pass from the left). I could see people in nearby shops wondering what was happening and one of them did walk up between the two vehicles and and signalled to me that i should go from the left; i indicated that i would go from that lane only. The tempo driver tried to reverse the car and take it from my left, but then the traffic did not permit him to do so. After about 5 minutes, the tempo driver reversed back into the lane where he had emerged from and I proceeded down my road. I am not sure if he went the correct way, but thought it a good idea to leave the next face-off to someone else since he had backed down.

The very surprising thing is that people see no wrong in the behaviour of these commercial vehicles (be they trucks or bmtc buses or tempos or autorickshaws) or even two wheelers on this road. Granted that gas has become expensive, but is it more expensive than their and other people's lives which they put into danger in hopes of saving a few petty rupees?

PS : Guys, I was not angry, so it is not 'road rage'.

To be entirely fair, I find that this behaviour is also not unknown to the supposedly educated and definitely well-heeled. People who visit Rajmahal Vilas club in RMV 2nd Stage as well as a crossing about 150 feet from the club also indulge in such behaviour. At a T crossing, they turn right instead of turning left and taking a left turn and then a U turn barely 75 feet down the road.

[Wheeliej]

Wasted another 15 minutes of my time this morning getting 3 trucks to back-off and go the 'right' way at the petrol pump after Hoodi junction on the way to ITPL from KR Puram.

Had to finally threaten to call the police when the first truck driver decided to argue out his case in person.

With one lane being blocked by a truck (thankfully facing the right way), these truck drivers dont think twice before blocking the only available lane by going the wrong way - in peak hour traffic when the rest of us are trying desperately to get to work on time after spending 1.5 hours on a road (that should really only take 30 minutes) dodging 1.5 million traffic lights, 30k bus stops, 500 double parked (or one bus overtaking the other) buses, 3 million bus passengers waiting on and blocking the road while waiting for the bus, 50 million broken down / simply parked trucks and 5 million pedestrians who are strolling on the roads trying to cross them (hope you dont mind the slight exaggeration). Their 3 Rs. worth of diesel and 2 Rs. worth of time is more important in the greater scheme of things than the precious time of those earning (and thus losing) much more, I am guessing.....

[lsjey]

Wheeliej,

Please be careful with these morons. The reasons are:

1. Firstly these guys are morons. They donot understand reason, logic etc. Most importantly they do not understand traffic rules.
2. The Police in bangalore are very lax. I've not seen many cops in the mahadevapura road that you seem to travel daily. Even if they are there they donot help. Ex. I blocked a tempo coming wrong way (Taking right at the bridge near tin factory to enter pai layout) and the cop who arrived at the scene, asked me to back up and move away and give way to the tempo. When I asked him to ticket the tempo wallah, he became irritated.
3. There will be no help if you get into trouble. From any one. I've not yet seen any one come up to help if such circumstances. People do come initially and once their curiosity is satisfied just move on.

The only hope for guys in ITPl is to take the route through kadugodi hit old madras road (NH) somewhere after nimbekaipura and go through KR puram cable stayed bridge, to avoid heavy traffic.

Regards,
lsjey
3.

[Wheeliej]

Thanks Isjey. You are right; most of the time, I just ignore them, but just sometimes (once in 6 months, it appears ), I get stubborn and dont want to let them get away with that nonsense any more.

I will agree about not depending on the police part since they know these offenders intimately, being financed as they are by these offenders regularly.

I have been told about this Kadugodi road, but have not had the chance to try it out since I leave quite late in the night and dont want to try to find the way on the new road in the dark. Also, I hear that it is not the best road in terms of surface (moon like?)

there are a couple of other roads that I do know about but, again, avoid going there alone after dark.

[sajands]

Hi All,

I don't know if this is the correct place to post, got this as an email and felt like sharing it with you all. This is an intresting read, sum's up nice.

Truck Drivers:
You usually don't get to see them directly because they sit somewhere at an altitude. You can however identify the cabin crew by a frantically waving hand on the non-driver side. This hand belongs to a crew-member called 'cleaner' and all scholastic efforts till date have failed to decipher the symbolic meaning of these waving. It is however Safe to assume that these waving mean 'stay away'. Fortunately the trucks are prohibited from the arterial roads. But you can see them racing each other at 30 kmph and 31 kmph on the ring road. They successfully block the whole width of the road. It is advised that you take them over from left (yes, the wrong side) for, they wont let you pass from the right side anyway. The other advice is to keep away from them.

BMTC Drivers:
You can see them from a mile away from the distinguishing color and driving. It can be very dangerous and frustrating to follow a BMTC bus. The bus follows Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and at any instance you can not predict the speed AND the position correctly. One observation that might help the reader is that they always keep right between bus stops and move to left (well, almost) at bus stops. This is the apt opportunity for you to take the bus over and go stuck behind the next one. The drivers can be seen although mostly through the bus's rear view mirror. If you happen to see them directly through their window, be prepared to listen to advice for having taken them over in a dangerous fashion. While a normal bus can easily create a road block on any given road, there are special capacity joint-buses (called janti vaahana) which have an uncanny power of blocking up to 3 roads at a time at a junction.

Cab Drivers:
Characterized by red eyes, irritable nature, unkempt facial hair, constant honking even at stationary object! They always try to go at 80 kmph, assume the urgency of an ambulance and expect everyone else has less important job. Most of them do not sleep for days together and some of them are trying to compete with David Blain for stretching human limits. The author personally knows few cab drivers who do not have a habitat. They just keep a pair of spare uniform in the cab, eat sleep in the cab and use public bathrooms. Driving style of these indicates that many of them were auto rickshaw driver earlier. However, they still seem to carry the self image of an auto rickshaw and try to squeeze a MUV into the 1 meter gap between any two objects.

Car Drivers:
Characterized by creased foreheads. Having paid through their noses and fighting to pay the EMI, they are obsessive about their cars and want to make sure nobody bumps/scratches their car body. This sits on the mind perpetually and causes those creases on foreheads. Most pitiable class of drivers having the most to lose from the mistakes of other classes of drivers.

Auto Rickshaw Drivers:
Having stood over years as undisputed symbol for rash driving, they are unfortunately losing grounds to cab drivers. Unfortunate because a rashly driven MUV is more dangerous than a rashly driven auto rickshaw). Auto rickshaws are the vehicles with most diverse speed ranges. They travel at speeds approaching zero when they have no passengers aboard and travel at speed of unto 3x108 m/s when a passenger is aboard. Analogous to the belief that "a cat can pass through any hole that is bigger than its skull" auto rickshaws can "pass through any gap that is wider than the headlight". They defy all laws of Physics. A typical auto driver sits with a calm and indifferent attitude of a formula-1 driver just before the race. Based on his age, he is a Rajkumar/Shankarnag/Darshan fan.

He feels strongly towards these actors and towards Karnataka and Kannada. In a surprising observation, many auto drivers refuse 1.5 times the meter reading after 10 PM if you are exiting from Ranga Shankara*. This is their humble way of commemorating their favorite star who made films like Auto-Raja.

Ranga Shankara is a theater built in memory of late Shankar Nag and it is the place where all new dramas are staged first

Two Wheeler Drives:
The class in the most advantageous position. They consist of a variety of sub-populations like office goers, salesmen, mothers dropping children to school, college students, neighborhood store owner transporting about 1 ton weight on a moped, whole families of 4-5 children going on an outing etc. They usually mind their own business and do not cause inconvenience to other types of vehicles. They use all possible space on and around the road, including footpaths, medians, drainages, staircases etc and thus enhance infrastructure utilization .

Regards,
Sajan

[sriturl]

Originally Posted by himanshugoswami

The favourite pass-time for two wheeler riders is to count the number of car mirrors they can knock down each day. Am sure there is a website somewhere keeping tabs on the count and giving out prizes, the way they single-mindedly knock down the mirrors.

They did it once to me, for my Alto. I was stationary at Manipal siganl, and next minute I see some sound on my left.
I tried to look through my left RVM, and see that it is missing. Strange, I see a bike next to me, and a trunk(yes, I donot see the head or upper portion of a person).
Later, realized that he actually bent down to pick up my broken RVM from ground to hand over to me.


The other category of bikers I need to add are "new bikes" who always want to travel only on the extreme right lane, be it IRR or ORR.
They never move from that location.

You can safely assume if you see them from a distance that it would be a woman(Dont grade me as a MCP, but true in most cases) driving a high speed bike (read Scooty or similar vehicle) on right most lane.

[diabloo]

@sriturl - Reply on the 2nd anniversary ?!

Nothing has changed in these 2 years. Will anything in the next 2?

[sriturl]

Originally Posted by diabloo

@sriturl - Reply on the 2nd anniversary ?!

Nothing has changed in these 2 years. Will anything in the next 2?

till now, didn't see the last posted date. I think I came here from another thread linked to this.
Not sure, if anything changes.

I am particularly more concerned about these slow drivers driving on extreme right lane. I am not criticizing bikers alone. I too drive bike, but do not block the right lane when I am driving slow. I somehow cannot understand how "educated" drivers cant understand that they are putting themselves at risk driving slow on stretches of ring road, where they could be easily hit by a vehicle behind if they are at some of the curves.
On a straight road, they put others at risk, forcing people to brake abruptly.

[HellwratH]

Very well written. On popular demand from my friends, could you please add a section for out of state buses...especially the ones heading to Hosur and so on. They are the ones who cause the most jams on Hosur road!

[arunnn]

7 reasons why Autos are the most wonderful vehicle on Indian roads.

1) Only one type of vehicle which need not follow any traffic rules
2) Seating capacity is not defined. It can vary from 1 - 10 ( especially in Bangalore Electronic city )
3) Can run without a headlight at night
4) Can overtake through any side
5) Can take U turn anywhere
6) Can ride through any lane
7) Can be parked anywhere, even on express highways !
Now the Indica/Sumo cabs also joined this club
If you know more reasons please add.