[esteem_lover]

All the unruliness in our traffic system does not stop me from following road discipline. If, in a junction, I am the only one that is waiting for the signal to change & out of the 30 vehicles that speed past me, one vehicle stops alongside mine, it really makes my day. That is enough for me. of course I am wary of hurtling buses & trucks, but i stay put.

[supremeBaleno]

john, you sure are following the right approach. Instead of blaming others who are breaking the rules (due to ignorance or choice), it is better to follow the rules ourselves and set an example for others.

I am all for doing something. Chennai tbhp-ians, any ideas ? Instead of just shooting the breeze (and downing coffee) at Woodlands during our meets, we could do something useful.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

Chennai tbhp-ians, any ideas ?

we will shoot the breeze & down coffee in woodlands as we discuss this thing, ok ?

[kphilip]

Mindset of the people are so narrow here that given a chance to break the rules, they do it with open heart..Strict enforcement of rules is the best remedy..

[rr_zen]

Originally Posted by kphilip

Mindset of the people are so narrow here that given a chance to break the rules, they do it with open heart..Strict enforcement of rules is the best remedy..

I second your thought. Unfortunately, the minds of people are tuned that way. It should be in each and everyone's system to follow the rules religiously. Sadly, the only effective way of getting that accomplished in our country is to coerce people into following them and penalising heavily those that dont follow.

@John: I rhyme your thoughts too. Before trying to correct someone one should be correct himself.

[sajid33]

dear guyz from down south , u should atleast for once , come to UP and watch , even traffic in hell would be smooth , here, in Muzaffarnagar Distt., no sense whatever , it takes 130kms and 3 hrs from muzaffarnagar city to New Delhi , but you never know when are you going to catch the NCR . since 3 am to midnight ( God!! why didn't i mention about 24 hrs. ) , the roads are full of buffallo carts and thirty tonner trucks , loaded heavily with sugarcane (this region is full of sugar mills ) block the entire road , looong queues of tractor trolley and trucks , waiting and fighting for their turns , a lot of trucks can bee seen tumbled down due to over loading , hence a road jam for atleast 24 hrs. , travelling on the wrong side of divider is a normal scene here , from a moped to an overloaded truck , every vehicle is there , PLEASE if our teambhp is capable of doing anything , try it here first !!

[selfdrive]

One of my acquaintances has applied for and got a traffic volunteer type of card from the commisioner office in Pune. I have only heard about this through a friend, but its a good idea if someone wants to help out during a traffic jam till the cops come across. at least no one else will question you for doing that.

[Gany]

Sticker looks like a great idea!
First & foremost thing on better traffic discipline is to be self disciplined
If all of us follow the traffic rules even 75% of the time, we will make great contribution to the country & green earth!

Additionally here is my suggestion to improve the discipline!

Collect hefty fine a min of 1000 INR. Give 25% of the fine collected to the cop, 25% to the station, 25% to build support infrastructure to the traffic cops & 25% to the Government coffers!

The fine should be not be collected on the spot, instead send the challan to registered address. For each such offence the cops should have some form of objective evidence such as video record of the offence itself.

The payment of the fine shall done at a specified traffic office, by the rigistered owned of the car in person.
He should be shown the offence, followed by some lessons on defensive driving, followed by some gory videos of various accidents and how they happened,followed by a visit to a hospital where accident victims are being treated, followed by a driving test in test track!

Trust me if you do this even for 75% of the cases of traffic offense, you will erase traffic indiscipline from the dictionary!

[camchennai]

I was actually planning to start a thread on the same lines, however now I have changed my mind since a thread already exist

Few weeks back, I read in newspaper about the road accidents happen in India and who are victims. As per the report, in 80% of the road accidents victims are pedestrians and Mumbai electric train kills more persons in a year and for the past 5 years it has killed more lives than Bhopal gas tragedy. Today we are creating a big chaos for Bhopal tragedy but Mumbai electric train case is unnoticed.

In today’s world, all car manufacturers build safety cars and they constantly innovate some new safety feature in their cars (Like ABS, Airbag, traction control, etc). If we sit and think for a moment, all these safety feature are for the people who have invested their money in their cars. What about the safety for pedestrians and others?? Do they really care about it?? They worry about people spending money on their vehicle and forget about all others. Either the government or some other body fails to look in to it, I would suggest government should have some regulation for all these manufacturers to invest certain amount of money in creating road safety awareness. This would for sure make marginal reduction in fatal accidents. I am not telling that entire fault was on the driver of the vehicle or on the pedestrian which leads to this fatal accident, however I can say there is a lack of road safety awareness in our country.

Government is building large road networks and extending its PPP model to all corners of India, however it has failed to address the basic need to road safety awareness. There is no point in building world class road when people don’t know how to use it and when to use it, this would basically increase the fatal accident rate as people will cruise on these roads and pedestrians won’t be aware of their road safety.

Now, you can get back to me asking what have you done so far in terms of creating road safety awareness on road safety. I haven’t done anything apart from obeying to traffic rules and giving to way to pedestrians whenever they come across. As a citizen I can do only that much, however we are in a forum which has more than 30k active users and many more guests. Why can’t the road safety awareness created by our own Team-BHP. I have just thought thro the below items which would help us in spreading some awareness to public and initially to our members.

• Stick to traffic regulation
• Stick to speed limits
• Banners and advertisements in our site to create traffic awareness
• Few stickers emphasizing on traffic awareness
• Circulating pamphlets in our team-BHP meets
• Monthly or quarterly awareness meet in villages nearby highway

As of now I can only think of those, however I am sure members can add some more to the list. I hope I am not exaggerating the cause and I feel everyone part of this forum would come forward for this initiative.

Thanks and dedicating this post to people who have lost their lives in fatal road accidents.

Safe motoring.

[Gany]

You have hit the right point. This is a 4 way street- accountability on the part of Goverments, Manufacturer, vehicle user & Pedestrian/citizen at large! If all parties does their bit to improve, we will definitely see a marked difference in quality of life - not only on the roads elsewhere too

Coming to manufacturers, currently there are certain regulations in the offing which makes pedestrian safety a requirement. So car manufacturers will be bringing new age bumpers & bonnets that reduces the injury caused to pedestrians. There are also other systems such as automatic detection & accident prevention.

But for all this to translate to each & every vehicle, Govt has to bring regulation. If left as is, no manufacturers (atleast in India) would like to invest and add safety features! If safety has been proactive measures, then all 2 wheelers would have been sold along with helmets, mud flaps etc. All cars would have been sold with disc brakes, better tyres, ABS etc

Now coming to goverment, less said is better. Are there any goverment official who are bothered about common man? If someone is talking about doing good for common man, surely there is some money to be made! Also I have my own doubts on the common sense & intelligence in the system. One look at some of the road works/fly over construction in Bangalore you will know, how stupid that some engineers could think of a plan like this! Being an engineer myself I feel ashamed of their act!

So that leaves us the common citizens - it is upto us to do our bit & fend ourselves. By following the codes & trying to spread them through whatever the forum we can get to, we can do a lot good! Atleast start at home educating our family first!

When I was teaching computer skills on volunteer basis over the weekend for about 1 year, I took special class for every batch on road safety! I hope that gave some tips for the children as they walk on the footpath!

Btw - yesterday I said the fine should be increased! By some co-incident I was fined today by a cop at 7 AM. I was dropping my father to the bus station. I was traveling that side after a long time. I took a u turn which I was not supposed to. My mistake, I somehow missed the no U turn board, instead followed the autos criss crosing that junction. The cop was an elderly person and well behaved. I apologised to him for my mistake and paid the fine, a mere 100 INR and collected the challan!

[camchennai]

Originally Posted by Gany

Coming to manufacturers, currently there are certain regulations in the offing which makes pedestrian safety a requirement. So car manufacturers will be bringing new age bumpers & bonnets that reduces the injury caused to pedestrians. There are also other systems such as automatic detection & accident prevention.

This is a welcome feature I am expecting, at least this would reduce fatality marginally.

Originally Posted by Gany

If safety has been proactive measures, then all 2 wheelers would have been sold along with helmets, mud flaps etc. All cars would have been sold with disc brakes, better tyres, ABS etc

This is an excellent suggestion, its right time for the Government to come up with regulations. It should not stop with manufacturers alone, they should also build better road which is also a culprit here.

Originally Posted by Gany

By following the codes & trying to spread them through whatever the forum we can get to, we can do a lot good! Atleast start at home educating our family first!

Absolutely true.

Originally Posted by Gany

I took special class for every batch on road safety! I hope that gave some tips for the children as they walk on the footpath!

Government should start something on these lines and if they invite for volunteers I am sure everyone in this forum including me will come forward to take up this.

[mb_jg]

I was on the way back home on the 24th evening from Camp, going towards the AFMC hospital road, I see this man lying motionless on the side of the road, he had a stick lying next to him which had a bunch of knick-knack toys on them, figured he must've been some street vendor.
I was even more shocked to see not a single vehicle tried to stop to check if he was dead or alive or just needed help, instead they were just avoiding him & carrying on.
I stopped the traffic & checked him, he was not bleeding & not drunk either, probably knocked off by a vehicle.
Seeing me struggle other people finally joined me & diverted traffic from over-running the man. A rickshaw guy alongwith his friend volunteered to take him to the hospital.
Wow, is this what it has come to guys? I saw people just passing by (educated people in big cars alike) without even a reaction. Has money, materialism & ego taken over our sensibility & responsibility completely?
It was really sad, people are treating the roads like private property & fail to understand that driving is a responsibility & not a right.

[Chetan_Rao]

The only person you can really change is yourself.

Everytime you fight that urge to break a traffic rule, you're adding one bit of safety to everybody around you. That's all that's required from everyone to make roads a safer place.

[Googleman]

I don't think all the people driving out there aren't aware of the ethics of driving. They are just moulding themselves to cope up with the situation.

sO, we should stop thinking of stupid ways about traffic awareness and learn more on dealing with the situation.

[snorting bull]

Its actually a bit surprising that we don't have a traffic regulation booklet. Not sure if everyone is aware of, but in U.S, they give a superb booklet which pretty much covers all aspects of driving rules. Most drivers, don't know the right way of driving, forget bending the known rules. If we can work in this direction, forgetting the people who bend the rules knowingly, but atleast we can educate what are the indian rules.