[binand]

Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI

Strangely, one finds more 'Bakes' than proper restaurants along KL highways

...who sell tasteless puffs and rolls and machine-made tea.

How I long for the hotels of yore with their traditional snacks and samovar-made tea! Podichaya and chatti pathiri, my favourite.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by GeeTee TSI

One more reason for my disdain on KL roads (and my vote too!) is that there is a lack of highway joints for a decent (nature's) break. Busy little towns have some restaurants but rarely parking in front. Strangely, one finds more 'Bakes' than proper restaurants along KL highways

Off Topic: I always plan my journey so that I end up at a KTDC Motel Aaram or an Indian Coffee House. Usually good parking with toilet facilities and good food

But for an emergency loo break fuel bunks are the saviors.

Back to topic, I used to drive between Trivandrum and Kochi for my work many years back. Even then (10yrs back) i used to leave by 5AM to reach Kochi by 9AM with a breakfast break and would leave Kochi after 9PM and reach Trivandrum by 12 Midnight.

Then i stopped. Trains were the life saviors for a travelling salesman. Good connectivity, time to catch up on movies, shows, books and prepare for meetings.

Driving on Kerala highways is just a mind numbing affair during the day and is not for the weak of heart :(

And i don't understand why the government does not widen these highways.

[Livnletcarsliv]

I think many/most of them who voted here probably overlooked the question.
The question here is Worst "HIGHWAYS IN INDIA" - which means bad/worst National Highways / State Highways - Not bad roads or worst roads per se.

For eg - For it to be considered or felt to be a national highway, we expect at least 4 lanes. (Forget about what the law says, forget about what the government thinks).

I voted for Kerala. Why? - For eg, In Kerala, more than 90% of the road network is limited to only 2 lanes. So the concept of highways itself takes a hit or becomes ambiguous in Kerala.

Well, since I have not traveled to the NE states, I cannot comment on that.

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by binand

...who sell tasteless puffs and rolls and machine-made tea.

How I long for the hotels of yore with their traditional snacks and samovar-made tea! Podichaya and chatti pathiri, my favourite.

Actually this is changing now. Lot of 'container cafes' are popping up all along the highways. Nice tea and traditional snacks are making a comeback.

[Mad Max]

I think you Kerala folks are being unfair to what the state represents. Totally not the state to cross in a hurry.

You drive at 40kmph, stop for delicious thattu kada food every hour or so, call your buddies along the way and ask them to meet you for a chaiyaa in local tea stalls and just relax. At least this is what we do when we have to get to Trivandrum from my hometown in Kanyakumari district. There's no point in hurrying in KL.

The drive is immaterial, the journey is memorable.

Purely from the lack of roads perspective, anything up from Rohtang is pretty much not there. They say they have highways but it's just gingerly following the car in front of you.

I still think KA has the worst roads - all the infra available, all the machinery and latest tech available but they can't make a good even road anywhere. You're cruising in triple digits and suddenly your car is airborne - courtesy - the road ended into gravel without any warning for 100 meters out of nowhere before it becomes nice again. Why!? highly unpredictable.

[callvvijay]

Off-topic alert! (Or, is it really off-topic?? You decide)

LOL!! I found something funny to share.

I see that the same person has voted a particular state in both "The Best" & "The Worst" categories.

[govindremesh]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Expect us mallus to vote in unison! No two thoughts about this. Our state has unarguably the worst roads in the country with no scope for improvement in the immediate future. As a poster above rightly said, 30-35 kmph is the best average you could eke out even on the 4/6 laned roads thanks to the combination of the traffic, speed cams and the absence of flyovers at junctions.

....And we're winning . Not only for literacy but we're also #1 for worst state highways!

While I voted for KL, by and large, the road surface quality is pretty good on KL highways. For reference- I've driven from Thrissur to Trivandrum in 4.5 hours in 2021, BUT I started my journey at 4 AM. Second time, same year, I started at 5 AM and it took 5.5 hours. Any later, it would ve no less than 7 hours.

A Bhpian has summed up the problem for Kerala (quoted). Given our history of opposing development projects and chasing industries out and the Alapuzha bypass that took an epic 30+ years to materialize, driving on state highways during sane hours at an average speed of even 50 kmph is a distant dream for Malayalees.

Originally Posted by Bibendum90949

i've driven across almost all states of India barring the NE. I can safely say Kerala has the worst highways of them all. Here I'm not talking about the surface quality of roads. The state of Kerala in fact is a big city with no real outskirts as such. You are just moving from one pocket of city to another. On Kerala roads, there's equality all the time. Whether you drive a M sport or a Nano, you'll just cover the same distance in an hour - 30-35 kms at best during daytime.

[A_Abhiraam]

Hi everyone I am a new driver residing in Kerala. I've not been able to drive through the heaviest traffic yet. But in the very little experience I've had driving or being driven by, my parents, through KA, TN, AP I believe the roads in Kerala are quite disastrous. There are some well laid down patches in central Kerala(MC ROAD) between Trivandrum and Thiruvalla and in the district of Kottayam but it's mainly just two-lane roads but wide enough and with plenty of KSRTC buses to scare the living hell out of you. Most of the National Highways pass through extremely busy towns and between Kochi -Trivandrum and Thrissur- Kasargod it's even worse.

[sac23]

For everyone who has not been to Kerala, this is what people are talking about.

I present you, NH in Kerala.



Video

We pay the same amount of road tax if not more than some other states. Yet, there are no 4 lane highways throught the state even in 2022.

[chennai-indian]

Hands-down Kerala. I paid Rs 10,000 as a fine for "overspeeding" when I traveled to Kochi from Chennai recently. Apparently, I was "overspeeding" doing 80 Kmph on a "national" highway, and the cameras (yes, there are cameras throughout from Palakkad onwards) caught me multiple times. I think Kerala makes enough thru fines on other state cars to pay the salary of their traffic cops !!

[sachin_cs]

I voted chhattisgarh and right now I'm on a trip to Abujhmad, Bastar. Surprisingly roads in Bastar are awesome but rest of the roads are crap.

I will let the pictures do the talking, my Heisenberg being subjected to abuse






Not all roads are like these, there's some good patches too. Bastar specially has good roads throughout.

[sravankrishnan]

Originally Posted by KANNURAN

To add to all this agony is the newly initiated means of limiting vehicle speeds at town entry-exits that ARE WORSE than conventional speed-breakers.

Couldn't agree more. They are awful and they destabilize the rear even at reasonable speeds. There's a particular one near Bakkalam and it's on a corner for some reason! I'd like to meet the man who came up with that idea.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

For example - From one major Kerala highway border to another...

That's a difference in average speed of 14kmph! Really puts it into perspective.

[CarJunki]

In Kerala, there are no highways practically. On paper, there are state highways and national highways, but in reality, they are narrower than well planned residential area roads in many parts of the country. The situation is so bad that most travellers to/from Kerala prefer to pay highway tolls in TN for safer and stress-free transits.

I have driven extensively in MH, GA, KA, TN, Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, KL.

[antz.bin]

Originally Posted by govindremesh

I've driven from Thrissur to Trivandrum in 4.5 hours in 2021, BUT I started my journey at 4 AM. Second time, same year, I started at 5 AM and it took 5.5 hours. Any later, it would ve no less than 7 hours.

Well that sounds like Nashik Pune Highway (in Maharashtra) till a couple of years back. It was predictably faster to cover 40% more distance and travel via Mumbai Pune Expressway instead.

But Highways in Maharashtra are improving at a rapid pace. Had this poll happened about 1-2 years prior to the pandemic, I would have definitely voted for Maharashtra. But now, it's well and truly Kerala. I have voted accordingly.

[mark4nano]

If i could vote i would have also voted for Kerala. I have driven across all the southern states and I personally found driving in Kerala highways a pain. As everyone pointed out it's not the roads but the traffic density. Except for a small section of highways in Kerala all the other highway are just like any normal city road which is always filled with vehicles. The intercity buses make things a lot more risky.