[pradeep_mvpa]

No wonder why all Mallus are voting for Kerala!

My parents usually take driver's help when they have to travel long distances ( I mean 50+ kms).
When I was at native place for a vacation, there was a need to travel to Alapuzha which is approximately 70 kms far from our house. I said, I will drive.. it is just 70 kms. There was a priceless reaction on my parents' faces

[venkyhere]

How can this opinion poll be anywhere representative of the truth ? The number of BHP-ians in the forum is not an even distribution across states, further on, the number of people voting in this thread may not have driven across many of the states to 'know' which to vote for. For example, I have not driven myself beyond the 4 southern states (have been chauffered elsewhere on rare occasions). So how will I know how the bad surface on a stretch of national highway in KL compares w.r.t the bad surface on a stretch of national highway in AR or AS ?
Only if some sort of "weighted averaging" after counting the number of members who have driven in a particular state (members must be asked to indicate which states they have actually driven in, alongwith their vote), can we have any semblance of an even playing field for comparison. Otherwise, the data itself will be biased. Forget statistic, if the data itself is coloured.

[desertknight73]

Originally Posted by amol4184

P.S> Wow, its rarity finding someone from here on tbhp. The count is up to whopping 3 people now!

Lucky find, I’m eager to find the third one, maybe add to the buddy list and plan a meet up as well; ours is a small city but has potholes larger than martian craters.
I’ve now developed a fear of driving back home from any place as entering MH from all axes the treacherous potholes instil a fear of breaking your spine if not your alloys.
Keralite BHPians, at least you are spared of getting your vehicles hit from the most unexpected direction - bottom!

[motorhead5]

I have driven pretty much all districts in Kerala, TN, Karnataka and a good part of Andhra too. Width of the roads and crowd is the problem with Kerala, especially the NH there. On that aspect, it's bad. Very bad for width and hence average speed too as most part of the NH are single track without dividers. But quality of road is good.. No much potholes.

Now if you compare state highways, Karnataka is the worst because the quality of roads are really bad with lot of potholes. Kerala is much better on that.

On both these, tamilnadu is much better.

[ScorpioYadav]

This SPEED CAM EXTORTION has really become a nuisance across states !!
NHAI builds highways & maintains them & according to the no. of lanes & whether it is divided or not, sets the speed limits & then charge toll accordingly but almost all the states lower the speed limits arbitrarily & unscientifically to LOOT the motorists.
They still have the communistic mindset that everyone in a car is well-off & is a tool for them for making money !! And we end up paying exorbitant tolls for the speeds we never got to reach or were robbed from both pockets after being fined for achieving the NHAI prescribed speeds.

I really hope that MORTH comes out with some ruling which takes the rights away from the states to fix speed limits on the NHs.

Based on the above point, I am voting for Rajasthan where despite having good road infrastructure (barring the Delhi-Jaipur Highway), the pleasure of driving has now changed into fear of getting challaned for over speeding (on lowered limits).

The Delhi-Jaipur stretch of the original Delhi-Mumbai highway has been a colossal failure of Transport Minister Sh. Nitin Gadkari. It is now in a worse state than when he took over the post in 2014 despite him doing stellar work everywhere else.
His hapless failure can be judged from the fact that he had to carve out an entirely new expressway between Delhi & Mumbai (which is getting developed at record pace) but he couldn’t resolve the issues which plagued the existing one !!

All the Haryana based members lamenting about poor roads in their state, I would request them to ‘Padhaaro Mhaare Des’ via the Jaipur Highway to see that the condition of the Haryana stretch on this road has also deteriorated considerably.

[clevermax]

I'm not sure if Kerala even qualifies for this poll since it doesn't have any proper highways as such.

I'm from kerala and I voted for kerala.

Here's a timelapse video from my dashcam which gives you a feel of how congested the NH66 is, on a normal day.

https://youtu.be/hNRnpaCAfDg

[abtyagi]

Originally Posted by Tgo

Voted Haryana.

The KMP, Eastern Peripheral section in Haryana are some of worst examples of roadwork. Sagging roads near culverts give you drops of almost 4-6 inches at interface of the tarmac and the concrete. With speeds you are supposed to be doing, bent rims are the least of your concerns, think more on the lines of totalling your cars.

Highways connecting Rohtak, Hissar, Gurgaon, and Bahadurgarh (may have missed a few more) have very sharp turns, and vague signage. Add to that the muscle men at tool plazas, both, in the cars and the booth settling arguments. Also parts of these highways were prone to flooding till a few years ago.

I am frequent on those roads. Especially both eastern and western peripheral. Trust me it's a dream for the rest of India to have such a road. Most of those drops are sorted now. My co brother used to do Sonipat(home)-Manesar(office) everyday, 100 km one way. Used to take 1 hr 15 mins. In Bangalore, my office is 6 km and used to take up to 2 hours.

I lived in Kerala, so roads aren't bad but KSRTC/Private buses make them dangerous. Roads are narrow, and Kerala is super densely populated, hence movement is always slow. So IMO, Kerala isn't with the worst highway.

My vote goes to "Maharastra". I have been riding, and now mostly drive across the country since 2009. And Maharashtrian highways commands the highest tolls and worst in quality. Such blatant corruption is nowhere to be seen. You enter from the Adilabad side or hubali/dharwad. Large potholes, sunken highway, unmaintained dividers. Maharashtra highways are a nightmare. Nothing worse than that have I ever seen across India.

[vivekkp]

Originally Posted by Stribog

As a Tamilzhan whose native borders Kerala, am sorry I have to vehemently disagree on both counts.

I am sorry but i have to disagree with you as well. The roads you describe may be an exception rather than the rule. I have driven in wayanad, palakkad, malappuram, ottapalam, ernakulam, kottayam and no where did i encounter a stretch of road which was bad. The only issue was that these roads are not wide enough and dense traffic throughout.

The buses do drive rashly, but the truckers and general public drive more sensibly than i have encountered in other states.

[BleueNinja]

I would say Maharashtra, bad roads along with cops stopping every non-MH car just adds to voes.
Dhule - chalisgaon road is a nightmare to drive regardless of your car's body type.
When the highways are good, speedbreakers are plenty.
Whenever i am travelling from Indore to Pune I make it a point to leave at 2 pm or so in order to avoid traffic on outskirts of pune and when travelling from Pune to Indore I start early morning by 4 am or so to avoid cops and their harassment since my car is TS registered.
Also one of my pet peeves is that why does pune lack a proper ORR. It desperately needs one. It's a headache if you enter pune from Hadapsar or Chakan during day or evening time.
Madhya pradesh's roads have improved leaps and bound.

[C300]

Originally Posted by Scorpio80

[*]Being from Mumbai, can't talk about highways, as we have Western Express galli, with mix of paver blocks, uneven surface, huge potholes, and poorly planned constructions. Going for a drive from Mumbai (especially western suburbs) requires one to travel for 1-2 hours just to get to something that can be considered a highway[/list]

Western expressway can take the crown of the worst highway in the country. Its a glorified Galli. In fact most of the Mumbai roads are Gallis with ghettos all around.
Road condition across MH in realy bad shape.

[Pratik Chavan]

In my opinion, this poll might be biased due to the demographics of voters, i.e. if there are more voters from a specific state in this poll, it is likely that they vote for their own state to have the worst roads (probably because most of us tend to drive extensively within our own state and less so in other states). Personally, coming from Maharashtra myself, I feel the road network leaves a lot to be desired, but I am not extensively well informed to benchmark MH roads vs. other states.

[livetodrive]

Voted for West Bengal and observed WB is giving a close competition to KA (30 vs 35 as of now).

That is surprising, because roads in Kolkata are better than Bangalore while SH are horrible in WB compared to KA.

[drjaygoyal]

Mumbai by far has the worst roads I have seen. Being a mumbaikar for 35+ years it is sad to see the appalling condition of Mumbai’s roads.

Worst part is it only keeps getting worse every year

Maharashtra really has the worst roads and need to pull up its socks if it wants to get on the fast track for development.

[Neversaygbye]

Voted for Uttar Pradesh not because of just road conditions but also because of the sheer lawlessness on the roads which beats all the other states I've driven in hands down. This is a state where every second two wheeler or tractor or cement mixer will come at you at full speed from the wrong side in the right lane on a divided carriageway.

Poor road surface compared to other states is another reason. I am a bit surprised to find that Maharashtra has got so many votes. I have done Mumbai-Pune, Pune-Nashik-Malegaon, Mumbai-Panchgani and even Mumbai-Goa and didn't find the roads bad at all, except in short stretches (but the latter's true for all of India).

Also, while Kerala roads are narrow and overtaking is difficult, I did not find the level of lawlessness on the roads there as I did in UP. Just that it is a bit frustrating if you want to get anywhere fast. I did not get to see too many of the notorious KeSRTC buses in action so that may have helped in creating a favourable impression.

Apart from UP, the one other state that has left me really unimpressed in recent times is Orissa, thanks to all the work that is happening on NH16 plus the speed cameras. But as it's just the one stretch, I have given Orissa the benefit of doubt. I did many NHs in UP and not just NH-19 and all of them were equally lawless. However, as I am yet to try ALE or Purvanchal Expressways which I've heard are excellent, my opinion may be a bit dated and hence biased.

[chef-de-jeep]

From my several trips From Mangalore to Pondy I do agree the highways of TN indeed take the cake. The state highways however are bad and not a shadow of the 6 lane highways. MH definitely reeks of corruption and complacency,KL I feel takes thw brunt of the development happening along the highway for decades and maybe no one wanting to part with precious 'highway touching land'. The first time I drove down my Vcross after delivery from Cochin, enroute to Mangalore was shocked at what was the highway and on several occasions thought I was lost.Just to describe the scenario to a few people I would say, if one went to buy some groceries at cochin and you were directed to a shop 50m away each time one could reach calicut uninterrupted.