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-   -   Are access controlled roads that bar slow moving vehicles elitist? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/275790-access-controlled-roads-bar-slow-moving-vehicles-elitist-4.html)

If I may digress a bit to a related topic - why is that in most of the toll roads in India, motor bikes and auto rickshaws don't need to pay toll and can use the roads free of charge?

If it is elitist to ban a section of users from accessing a facility (for whatever reason), isn't it also discriminatory to charge only a section of the road users (LMV, HMV) for using the facility when another section of road users can use it free of cost? :p

I am not arguing whether both of these scenarios are right or wrong. If I am happy to use a toll road by paying "No toll" because that is the rule, I should also accept the "No entry" on certain roads to comply with the rules. Just can't selectively outrage to these. lol:

Snipping your other lovely points esp the last one.

This is the key - no lane driving and zero enforcement.

Even Thailand or Turkey have lanes with a MINIMUM speed limit. India still does not have such a rule even on its best highways.

Accidents are caused by overspeeding + zig zagging often caused (in city highways) by slow sunday drivers disobeying lane logic.

Delhi Gurgaon Expressway is choked because you have all manners of geniuses and BluSmart cabbies driving at 60kph in the rightmost lane, forcing even folks wishing to drive at the legal limit, to zig zag across lanes.

Amazing roads like these need USA like lane discipline.

Even current cameras can enforce it. The government needs to wake up.

The question itself is wrong. The expressway is designed for high speed vehicles and for end to end connectivity, with not much interaction with the human habitations enroute. There is no question of allowing slow moving traffic on this. The main issue that such infrastructure ( that includes ALL public transport infrastructure including metros, trains, airports, buses) such infrastructure is made at huge costs in terms of public money, loss of agricultural and forest land and damage to the environment. Such infrastructure can be cost effective only if it is accessible to the lowest possible denominator of the possible to ensure maximum utilisation. That requires various governmental and non governmental interventions at various levels. How that’s fine is the question. Usually such things are not taken into account at the planning stage. It would be informative to see the profile of the people using various public infrastructure and comparing it with the Mumbai locals trains, which I consider truly inclusive.

If we think deeply, a basic country road shows an elitist mindset, which limits access for animals and plants to some extent. It also creates inequality between humans and animals.
Where do we draw the line?

The idea of an expressway to separate fast-moving objects from slow-moving ones for convenience and to prevent accidents doesn't solve either problem.

I cannot answer yes or no, hence not voted

I feel powerful bikes should be allowed. If you compare the braking power of Alto 800 vs say BMW GSA, you can see that BMW will stop in a better way than the other.

So, what I would propose is to issue Fasttag for such powerful bikes, so they can use toll roads. Usually big adventure/cruiser bikes are used for inter-state travelling and not for short travels, so they should be allowed.

It’s a deeply flawed concept. Give me an alternate road to travel (same distance and time), then I’m ok. Why force me to take a road that’s not maintained to the same level, is much longer (thereby more dangerous more often than not) and still call it safer for all? Else, on every so called expressway, create 8 lanes, 2 for trucks, 2 for two wheelers and 4 for cars. Have strict medians. After all, if a car is hazardous to the biker’s safety, isn’t a truck or bus hazardous to the car’s safety?

With the proliferation of these expressways, the older highways are maintained / patrolled lesser and lesser making them more dangerous for traffic of any kind, leave alone two wheelers.

Unfortunately, this being a predominantly car owners’ forum, such a result (as reflecting in the results of the poll) is only natural.

Is access control elitist? Oh, absolutely. But isn't a driver's license a means of access control too? So that too is elitist, right? Why should we restrict the road to only people with licenses? You see the problem here, don't you? Access control is needed to ensure safety for all of the road users, and taking it away to satisfy a few will be doing disservice to many more.

Speed is not the only issue. Survivability is a bigger issue. World over, harsher legislation is being ushered in to reduce road fatalities, and I see no reason why India should rush head-long in the opposite direction. I'm all for allowing 250+ cc bikes on the highways, but after there's a legislation passed to mandate a new category of driving license for all motorcycles that exceed 100 CC or a power threshold, based on existing examples from elsewhere in the world. What makes you think that a person who passes a DL test with a 2 geared Hero Puch is ready to handle a 250+ CC bike? Right now, a person can indeed pass the test with an M80 today and ride a Hayabusa tomorrow, as somebody already pointed out. Makes zero sense. Create a separate license class for more powerful bikes, ensure that the license exam is way more stringent to ensure proper quality control, and then allow them on the highways. Turbanator has an excellent suggestion regarding how to identify the right bikes to allow; allow fasttag registration for bikes which are sufficiently powerful and whose owners have the correct license for the enhanced class of motorcycles. Problem solved!



The fasttag suggestion is excellent, and indeed should be the way forward, but India really needs to have a vehicle power based DL system for two wheelers. It makes zero sense to have one license for anything from a Hero Puch 2G to a Hayabusa. In Europe, there are AM, A1 A2, and finally A classes for two wheelers, where AM is for mopeds with under 50 cc displacement, A1 is for light motorcycles, A2 is medium motorcycles and A is the final category, for heavy motorcycles. Getting an A license is no joke at all, while getting an AM license is little more than a formality. When we get to such a mature system with licenses, then we can think about allowing motorcycles above a certain power/displacement cut-off to roll on our highways/expressways, as we know that the quality control at least has been done. It still won't be a guarantee that people won't do stupid things on the expressway, endangering themselves and others, but will be a lot better than the current situation where evidence that a person can handle a powerful bike is just 'Trust me bro!' rl:

Er…

If a person who can drive an alto can be trusted with the wheels of a 180-200bhp XUV or Scorpio, why should the rules be any different only for two wheelers?

I do not think anyone in India gives their driving test in a merc/bmw. So, by extension of your logic, should we say that these vehicles too should be banned?

Making rules for the errant will only penalise the law abiding. But sadly, that seems to apply only to two wheelers here under the garb of ‘safety’. God knows, a rashly driven 4-wheeler is a greater menace than a two wheeler but alas, no stereotype here.


If a traffic personnel can’t differentiate between a 250+cc bike and a commuter, sorry, he doesn’t deserve to be in that department. Even if that were to be the case, issue tags/permits on the basis of RC at the time of purchase and stick to it. Period.