[evilshantanu]

Originally Posted by noopster

Well, yes...and no! I used to believe this as well, despite friends and family telling me to mind my own business. All this changed one day when I was zipping down a nice 6-laner in my neighbourhood and a Santro came charging up the wrong way and we ended up nose to nose. I rolled down my finger and asked the guy (in the local language) "Boss, why are you coming the wrong way- it's illegal and dangerous" and to my surprise he got out of the car and charged at me screaming "Oh so you'll teach me the law..? I'll see you, you %$#@!" (translated literally from Marathi )

I confess I lost it and screamed a couple of choice epithets out of my window. Then I got scared since my little girl was with me and all this may be scaring her. So I rolled up my window and zipped off, went for a long drive and a couple of ice creams before I calmed down enough to return home.

Now for the reason I don't do this anymore: after I'd zipped up, my little girl looks at me with a concerned look and says, "Papa why were you shouting at that man? Is he a bad man?"

It hit me then that this could well HAVE been a bad man, one that has no qualms in destroying my life or property over some trivial matter (remember Jessica Lall?) and how stupid I had been to expose myself and my family to danger out of some misplaced sense of outrage!

Having said all that, I am in way condoning what the Alto guy did and am very very sorry for your injury. Get well soon and don't waste your time and energy fretting over these low-lifes- they are just not worth it!

So true noops! Even I try to smile at people on the road now. I totally agree with you.

My mantra these days on the road is "comfortably numb".

[deep_bang]

i myself being a kannada speaking guy, still have had many of these incidents. Some with Cab drivers, some times truck drivers and some other times auto drivers.

One thing i have learnt is, to not 'compete' with these vehicles. I have many times, just left these cabs to go ahead of me, just so i can drive peacefully. I have learnt (painfully) not to go down to their level.

I suggest the same to all. Just take it easy, and try to express your anger through other means, like the horn. Honk a few times, and then take it easy! Crazy people always exist and they lose nothing. Fighting with them is like fighting with a pig in mud. The pig actually enjoys it.

[Renjith Rajan]

Get well soon man and never think about this incident again.

I saw fellow bhpians commenting about filing a police complaint and teaching him a lesson. From my experience it is very very very difficult.

I had a similar experience and I thought police would side with me as I was acting on self-defense. In the police station, SI asked me what happened. I narrated what *really* happened. But the other guy shocked me with his version of the incident. He denied everything and made so many false counter allegations. The SI asked me if I have any proof and I said no (of couse the other guy also had nothing). So he told me, this is your word against his word, if both of you are insisting on pressing charges against the other party, then he has no choice other than arrest both of us and investigate it. He then said, the second option is to shake hands with the other guy and go home.

I took the second option.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by bblost

You can send him either a Horse's head like "The Godfather" or an anonymous bouquet of flowers with a get well message courtesy his MH friend.
Either of these will scare the hell out of him.

Originally Posted by rohanjf

as BBLOST said, you must send flowers to his house with a note like, 'from the guy who you met on BETL at 5 pm on 14th December'. He will know that you have his address, and might wonder how you got it.

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

Now since you have his address - why dont you send this moron a bouquet of flowers for a week - with a Get Well soon card ?

Originally Posted by speedsatya

This car is serviced at Surakshaa and I have his address .But what do I gain out of this ?

@speedsatya: So you have his address, car number and other sundry details, and you might be considering sending him a bouquet of flowers as suggested by many. But what if this guy has used the same resources as you have, noted your car number and traced your address? Do you really want to provoke such a character? You might send him flowers and he might send you something more obnoxious, or downright dangerous.

Forget the incident, keep driving, and even if you do come across him, do not make eye contact - and you would be perfectly safe. Not provoking him is enough for him not to notice you, he's too busy showing off his driving skills to the world. In the meanwhile, we shall all pray that his brakes fail on him soon, when approaching an 18-wheeled rig head on.

[LDJ]

A similar incident happened with us too! Of unfair treatment just because our number plate was TN

On this particular day in 2010 we were just about finished with my hubby's work in the city and planning on visiting a couple of friends before we head back home to chennai. But things were to play out differently. We had just come out of our hotel and crossed to the main road and waited a while to make a U-turn. We were waiting on the side of the road with our indicators on as it was busy with traffic. Once we got a clearance we moved out slowly when a speeding motorist from a by-lane crossed into the main road and came straight at us. Inspite of my hubby signalling him he didn't reduce his speed and came by & crashed into our car just at the place where the right door meets the side fender. My hubby takes great care to maintain our Fiesta shining so he was pretty upset to see the door smashed in. A policeman standing a little farther down came by and started negotiating. My hubby was decided on a police complaint as a crowd had gathered and all were discussing in kannada. The bike guy started saying it was my hubby's fault so he had to explain that since we are with our family and baby inside we were taking more precaution than usual. Since I had our 1 yr old baby inside the policeman understood our predicament. The policeman then asked us to go to the nearby police station and file a complaint. So we got into the car and bike guy took off and disappeared and was nowhere to be found!

But we still went ahead to the nearest police station and lodged a complaint against the bike with the no (my hubby had the presence of mind to take a picture of his no plate as he was speeding away). The inspector there told us we did a good thing or else we might be in for further trouble if the bike guy had come in later and given any report against us!

Then we took our car to the nearest Metro Ford and the Service Manager(Mr.Karthikeyan) there so perfectly understood our situation and made sure our car was repaired for the time-being to reach Madras once again. He did not even accept any money from us! After reaching home we had to shell out ~3k to get it repaired

[Technocrat]

Sad to hear about this Satya, get well soon.

I agree that you should have avoided showing your hand to the Alto, you really never know who the person is.

I have heard of case in Mumbai on the WE highway, car A is continuesly honking car B, car B gives way after a while. Sometime later Car B see Car A & overtakes it while looking at Car A.
Result - Car A furiously chases Car B, makes him stop, asks him to come out & put a gun to his head & warns him to mind his business & not be a smartass. Luckily that's all they did & went away.

So its never a good idea also not knowing/speaking the local language doesn't help either.

I would suggest that you carry on & be more careful in future.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by LDJ

A similar incident happened with us too! Of unfair treatment just because our number plate was TN

On this particular day in 2010 we were just about finished with my hubby's work in the city and planning on visiting a couple of friends before we head back home to chennai. But things were to play out differently. We had just come out of our hotel and crossed to the main road and waited a while to make a U-turn. We were waiting on the side of the road with our indicators on as it was busy with traffic. Once we got a clearance we moved out slowly when a speeding motorist from a by-lane crossed into the main road and came straight at us. Inspite of my hubby signalling him he didn't reduce his speed and came by & crashed into our car just at the place where the right door meets the side fender. My hubby takes great care to maintain our Fiesta shining so he was pretty upset to see the door smashed in. A policeman standing a little farther down came by and started negotiating. My hubby was decided on a police complaint as a crowd had gathered and all were discussing in kannada. The bike guy started saying it was my hubby's fault so he had to explain that since we are with our family and baby inside we were taking more precaution than usual. Since I had our 1 yr old baby inside the policeman understood our predicament. The policeman then asked us to go to the nearby police station and file a complaint. So we got into the car and bike guy took off and disappeared and was nowhere to be found!

But we still went ahead to the nearest police station and lodged a complaint against the bike with the no (my hubby had the presence of mind to take a picture of his no plate as he was speeding away). The inspector there told us we did a good thing or else we might be in for further trouble if the bike guy had come in later and given any report against us!

Then we took our car to the nearest Metro Ford and the Service Manager(Mr.Karthikeyan) there so perfectly understood our situation and made sure our car was repaired for the time-being to reach Madras once again. He did not even accept any money from us! After reaching home we had to shell out ~3k to get it repaired

So where did you get unfairly treated in all this??
I thought the police was in fact helpful enough in your case to let you file a report and do all the formalities.

[vb-saan]

Originally Posted by noopster

Well, yes...and no! I used to believe this as well, despite friends and family telling me to mind my own business.
…
…
Get well soon and don't waste your time and energy fretting over these low-lifes- they are just not worth it!

Very well said! I can completely identify with this. Best is to ignore and move on (at least that’s what I do nowadays). I often feel that many of our road users are always angry. And in that state of mind, they won’t react properly. So it’s best for us to act ignorance.

Anyway, I don’t think this is an isolated issue of Bangalore. This can happen in any part of the world. I have seen someone showing a gun to a fellow driver in Manila. Reason – the latter honked at him a couple of times at the traffic signal.

[SDP]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

....
Forget the incident, keep driving
....

That's the most important message and I echo the same thought. Please do not switch to company transport or public transport. Learn and move on.

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

In the meanwhile, we shall all pray that his brakes fail on him soon, when approaching an 18-wheeled rig head on.

We don't even have to pray for that. Aggressive driving with limited skills, you get lucky a few times. But eventually your luck runs out and then its Judgement Day - time to meet the Creator!

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by vb-san

Very well said! I can completely identify with this. Best is to ignore and move on (at least that’s what I do nowadays). I often feel that many of our road users are always angry. And in that state of mind, they won’t react properly. So it’s best for us to act ignorance.

I do completely agree with you but at the same time this acceptance tendency has become so much part of our life that we keep moving on inspite of being at the recieving end.

Just yesterday as I was approaching the signal which had turned green, I honked thrice at a biker who was deliberatley going slow even when he saw the signal green. This biker then follows me at the side hurling choicest of abuses and making signs to go over his head. At the next signal, I rolled down the windows and told him that he was moving very slowly and was in the wrong lane. The biker started in Marathi assuming that I didnt know, but I gave back to him in Marathi the words which even he didnt know and moved on. So sometimes acceptance tendency is paid dearly. My personal opinion.

[ch.nathan]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

In the meanwhile, we shall all pray that his brakes fail on him soon, when approaching an 18-wheeled rig head on.

Best thing that could happen to such people(or animals?).
I really liked that sentence.

[revintup]

Get well soon buddy.

Very sorry to hear about this incident. Even i am guilty of shouting out my anger and giving out fingers too. But after reading these, maybe we should all be extra careful. Relaxing music and ac on full blast is all that can be done to keep ourselves 'cool' in b2b traffics.

A similar incident to happened to my cousin bout 5 years back. He was approaching a small bridge and a sumo cuts in front of him causing him to brake suddenly. He swears at the sumo, which suddenly stops cutting him off, and some guys come out, one holds a knife to my cousins neck and asks if theres some problem. lets off after apologising. could have gone either way.

[Ford5]

In namma bengaluru, I have noticed and come across many road rage cases.

1. It is either, local corporators henchmen driving a wasted Indica diesel with no brakes or a good santro and overtaking like crazy as if to show off their skills.

2. It is some driver of a Babu/bureaucrat who needs to hurry and thinks nobody can file a complaint against his boss.

3. Third and the most common cause is, call centre drivers who know the SI, Traffic sentry and even circle inspector of the area they frequent, so just in case they get into something bad they have an upperhand with the cops. Sound stupid, but Bangalore cops are the best when it comes to striking deals, so apart from hafta from shops even private cab operators have to cough up.

This ensures that somebody who doesn't know Kannada will back down, and fear for his life. Worse off if you try to file a case, the cops will keep calling you to the station for obvious reasons unrelated to the case.

This is the reality in bangalore. Its a city which exploded overnight while trampling all other villages and towns. And when someone abiding the rules pisses of an illiterate local who till yesterday did not even know what a driving license is, you're assured to go through "swalpa adjust maadi" treatment.

[rahul_sinha]

Well, my take on it. I would say SpeedSatya, your hand gestures might have provoked him.
I recall an incident sometime ago when I had gone for a quiet coffee with my wife at Chandni Chowk @Pune - bang in front of a police checkpost. There is very little space for parking cars and I was lucky to get one. After our coffee, when we came to the car, an Indica was parked perpendicular to my car at the rear with no space whatsoever to wriggle out.

I got "slightly" irritated and just honked the horn "LONG ENOUGH". No words, no gestures, just honked. They were 10 of them and in three Indicas parked one after another which I failed to notice earlier. I got thrashed black and blue, ended up with broken glasses, swollen face etc. My wife tried to intervene in between but was pushed, and she was in her first trimester. Thank God, nothing serious happened, else I would have never been able to forgive myself. We DO need to practice restrain, its not worth it, whether you are travelling alone or with loved ones.

That is the reason why I use the quote in my signature.

"Its better to wear slippers than put carpet on earth".

[speedsatya]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

@Forget the incident, keep driving, and even if you do come across him, do not make eye contact - and you would be perfectly safe. Not provoking him is enough for him not to notice you, he's too busy showing off his driving skills to the world. In the meanwhile, we shall all pray that his brakes fail on him soon, when approaching an 18-wheeled rig head on.

Yes .Its difficult to forget ,but yeah I have other more important things nad people around me to worry about than worry about people following traffic rules . I will try and ignore such people .Even today ,when I was driving back ,I saw the BTP on the other side of the road .Everyone was shamelessly speeding on the other lane .For a second I did think about parking the car on the side and go over the divider to show them speeding cars if they were blind ...but then I thought ,why should I bother and moved on .

Dunno why is it so difficult for BTP to invest in one more speed gun ...with the way people drive here ,they would recover the costs within the first month .

About this guy meeting a 18 wheeler head on .I dont want to wish the 18 wheeler driver bad ...traffic rules in our country will always blame the 18 wheeler driver of rash and negligent driving .If this incident doesnt change this guy ,he will learn to follow rules in some other way .


I am just waiting for my DVR to reach me