[Newpunter]

Originally Posted by mayankk

I agree with you, so let me try and rephrase that.

what city in India doesnt have arguments on the road when scratches occur.
and youve taken my statement out of context, without the the preceding text and relevance from previous quote, about "this city".

Point taken. I misunderstood your statement so sorry for that . I did say in my first post on this thread that this is not limited to the north or Delhi, so we were basically saying the same thing .

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by mayankk

I agree with you, so let me try and rephrase that.

what city in India doesnt have arguments on the road when scratches occur.
and youve taken my statement out of context, without the the preceding text and relevance from previous quote, about "this city".

You mention this, and i recall before i learnt drive, i read about fender benders in books, and how people asked,"i hope you are insured!!"
but when i got around to driving, and in the learning phase, i asked people, "when accidents happen, we exchange insurance details, yes?"
and everyone looked at , as if saying" are you a kook?what is this youre talking about?"

At least I have not seen it getting to a point of beating each other black and blue in these few cities where I have spent considerable amount of life:
1. Visakhapatnam
2. Hyderabad
3. Pune


Rickky - I believe this introspection should teach you something.
You were lucky. The guy on the car was not hot headed.
And neither was he carrying a weapon. Things would've turned real ugly (the way I have seen it happen in and around mostly Delhi - disclaimer: I have spent half my life in Delhi).

Don't indulge in any argument unless there is a measurable harm caused to you.

[cranky]

Since I fanned the Delhi fire, a quick clarification.

Fights happen regularly, and everywhere. In Calcutta there will be a verbal duel, a bunch of bystanders and passers-by will get involved, there will be some amount of heckling to get money out of whichever vehicle seems to be more expensive, and people will forget it and move on.

In Bangalore, people will shout at each other, shrug and move on. Chennai is similar, nobody gets involved in long disputes.

In Mumbai, if you mess around you get to sample jail cuisine for a few days (at least four incidents in the last few weeks). Not nice, so people generally are more well-behaved. In a hour's drive from the airport to Worli, my (North Indian) cabbie did not honk, switch lanes or misbehave even once. So it's got nothing to do with community, it's the surroundings and the circumstances.

In 10 minutes at the Gurgaon/Delhi 24km tollgate, you go deaf with the honking and people switch lanes every three seconds trying to find the shortest line. It's kind of ridiculous. You could get killed or run over by the driver of a car (both of which happen and are covered well enough in press). The perpetrators are (or think they are) well-connected enough to get away with anything.

So yes, things are bad everywhere. However here, it is plain dangerous and you never know whether you will be alive three seconds later.

[alpha1]

Thanks Cranky - I almost forgot the 4 years in Chennai.

[download2live]

Originally Posted by mayankk

It happens, yes.

and what city in the world doesnt have fights when you scratch their car?
come on....

Thats it? "Its happens, yes" ? Thats all one says and moves on with life? Try telling that to the family of deceased.

Fights happen but killing is not a part of fights.

Originally Posted by mayankk

"this city".

I still stand by my words. The level of road rage I saw in my brief stay of 1 year in Delhi has still not been matched by any other city I have lived in ( 3 yrs in Hyderabad and 4 years in Bangalore).
And one day of driving in Chennai city has left me most impressed.

I know many will say that there are bad people everywhere and one should not generalize and blah blah. But thats all words. My advice to a fellow Bhpian will always be to put the pride aside and move on. Road rage on Delhi roads can be fatal. Period.

[mayankk]

Sir, if you splice and use my quotes, you will also find that i killed elvis presley.
You are lucky to have been impressed with conditions in bangalore/hyderabad/chennai.
Kudos on that.
i'm sure there has never been one single instance of road rage in these cities.

And yes, people in delhi are hot blooded, get into arguments a lot, and escalate it quite a few times.
There are avoidance techniques that we employ,(the horse-blind technique/rush towards a PCR method etc etc.everyone has their safeguard.), but, yes it happens still.
for visitors, yes be advised, it can be fatal.
but road-rager in any other city is just as likely to kill you.

[nivatakavacha]

Note: Post written in jest. No offence meant!

Living in America for a few years gave me an entirely different perspective on three very important things:

1. Life as a pet animal
2. America’s love for the word “capitalism” and fear of the word “Socialism”
3. The royal life of the Pedestrian

I will not get into the details for the first point except paraphrase a dear friend of mine who once said (in Malayalam), “If one is to be born in America, it is better to be born as a pet dog.” Yes, the poor chap had had a particularly bad month at office and the good stuff that he imbibed that Saturday evening, made him enlightened and go all philosophical. Yes; life is good for the average pet!

I will also not get into point 2. “Socialism” is not a word that you can throw about casually in America, except in very tiny, progressive pockets. I think the average republican would love it if that word disappeared from the dictionary and from people’s memories.

But I will, with utmost decorum, talk about point 3 as it is relevant to this forum. The pedestrian is literally on top of the food chain in America. He is the alpha God on the road! At intersections and at crossings, everyone will wait for him/her to cross. To mock the drivers, he can walk even slower than usual but the car will wait patiently! As part of my experiments, I have personally tried it on multiple occasions but not once have I managed to break them. Even after spending more than five years in America, I’d still get marvelled every time I saw this “pheno-menon”. And I would immediately think about the average Menon in India. The poor creature is on the other end of the band! I am now in India and I wonder if the average pedestrian here knows about his counterpart in America and his fabulous life.

I personally think that God up there has a scale up there! And somehow, we ended up getting the raw end of the deal.
1) Alpha God, 2) Alpha mortal, 3) mere mortal, 4) the road belongs to me as well, 5) can I please have some space, 6) please don’t run over me

The american pedestrian is in Level 1 and we are in Level 6.

I can almost imagine him/her saying this when the first homo-sapiens (our ancestors) walked into the Indian subcontinent about 70,000 years ago on their epic journey from Africa, “I decree that you walkers will always have it tough! For the first 60,000 years, all the paths will be covered in trees, thorns and wild animals. Once civilizations starts, all the paths will be swarmed by thugs and bandits. And once the automobile is invented, you will always walk with the fear of getting run over.”

Also from my observation, the indian pedestrian can be classified into separate categories:

“Don’t angry me” wala
This pedestrian feels very strongly about his rights on the road. He will glare and try to intimidate you while he is crossing the road. You don’t want to “angry him”.

“Done this a thousand times” wala
He is a man on a mission and will confidence make his way across the road.

“Ram Bharosa” wala
This is the most interesting category. He will cross the road oblivious to any danger or any vehicle that is passing by. Each time this miracle happens, I get flabbergasted. I always make it point to stop the vehicle for them to cross.

“The timid” wala
Either this person to too timid or has an illness/handicap, or is too old/young to cross the road. I always make it a point to stop the vehicle for them.

What other categories have you noticed? How can we bring some awareness on this topic?

[rm_arjuna]

Originally Posted by nivatakavacha

Note: How can we bring some awareness on this topic?

Nothing will change since we do not have the basic infrastructure , even when someone consciously trys to walk on pavement you face numerous encroachment on whatever little space is left .

Only way this could happen is very strict implementation with rigorous fines which is in itself a big ?

[aerohit]

Originally Posted by nivatakavacha

What other categories have you noticed? How can we bring some awareness on this topic?

The one whose world revolves around "America" wala
Pedestrian gets reasonable level of respect almost everywhere in the world, including developing or poorer countries- for example, any reasonably developed African city, or developing countries like Thailand, or Gulf, or South America.

As an online community it would have been nice if there was stronger support by members for pedestrians, cyclists or bikers since they all share common infrastructure. Unfortunately, the focus is mostly on 4 wheel bling.

Gently slowing down instead of wildly honking at a crossing pedestrian is just plain stupid!

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by nivatakavacha

What other categories have you noticed? How can we bring some awareness on this topic?

The "mein to phir bhi cross karunga" wala

These guys will see your vehicle coming, know that it is Very Difficult to cross within this short time left vis a vis the speed of the car, spend time making this calculation and then decide to test the Laws of Physics by running exactly at the point where the "Very Difficult" just changed to "impossible".

They almost always put the Laws of Physics to shame by reaching the other end, and scarring the hell out of the driver.

Of course, "Ram Bharose wala" category leave the utmost impact on your memory. I still see it quite clearly in front of me a man eating a banana suddenly appeared in front of my scooter (among 15-20 other vehicles) and managed to clear the 3 lane road without looking back, which happened like 15 years ago. Finally I concluded, after watching the 5 star advertisement couple of years back, that it must be the tasty-yummy-never-tasted-before banana which must have had its impact on his nerves connecting the brain.

[aerohit]

One goes to jail, other goes to hospital

[jinojohnt]

One thing we drivers have to keep in mind:
Most pedestrians are not aware that a reversing driver has so many 'momentary' blind spots even with all the mirrors and cameras. Try reversing into a crowded street, you'll understand that you cannot look at all the moving pedestrians/vehicles at the same time. Most pedestrians move out of the way if a parked car honks and moves forward, but people have a tendency to believe that cars 'rarely' move backward. This gives them a wrong safety feeling while standing behind a vehicle. Nobody notices the reverse-light, so it is better to have a reverse alarm (with on/off) even if it adds to the sound pollution. I have had numerous situations where pedestrians bang on the boot, so I am extra careful and move feet by feet while reversing. However hard we try, some pedestrian will come out of no-where and cut your path while reversing.