[GTO]

Source

Have been thinking about this for a while. Just had to share my thoughts after reading ach1lles post (excerpt below):

Originally Posted by ach1lles

It is crazy just how defensive you have to be on the road these days. The lack of confidence and fear I feel of hurting someone on the road and myself has increased to an uncomfortable level. I’m sure I make mistakes too but the sheer disregard for life I see on our roads blows my mind every single day.

Since road safety without following rules is an inverse function of time, as with time numbers (and frequency) of the number of people driving badly will increase, and the margins due to added volumes will reduce, rather than skill that something adverse will happen.

We are too many, too much in a hurry, and too distracted.

My opinion:

- The steep rise of consumer-focused commercial vehicles (Uber, Ola, delivery riders of Swiggy / Blinkit, small delivery pickup trucks etc. etc.) have been significant contributors to a decline in overall road sense & manners.

- Till 10 years back, a majority of cars & bikes plying on city roads were privately owned. It can be argued that private owners drive their own vehicles more carefully, and take better care of their vehicles. Owner's pride & all that. But also, our culture isn't known to treat 3rd-party property well (and many delivery vehicles are company or fleet-owned ).

- Since 2013 however, there has been a massive surge in commercial vehicles due to e-commerce deliveries, app-based taxi cabs, delivery riders of Swiggy / Zomato / Blinkit etc. As a percentage of vehicles on the road, Uber / Ola / delivery riders have risen from almost nothing in 2013 to high double digits today.

- Drivers & Riders of Uber, Ola, Zepto, Blinkit, Swiggy, Zomato etc. are always in a hurry. The greater the distance they cover (or the more orders they serve), the higher their pay. As a result, they are always fighting the clock. This breed is in perpetual “super fast” mode and the only thing on their mind is, how do I get from point A to point B in the quickest manner possible?

It's a fundamental problem. When you have to drive / ride at 100% capacity 100% of the time, speed is prioritized over safety, road manners, road rules & courtesy.

- New trend of deliveries in 10 minutes by Zepto, Blinkit & gang!! LOL, do you expect this kind of rider to be calm & composed? The riders themselves say they have to be reckless, or else they won’t be able to make any money (news source). Heck, other than the occasional medicine, I can’t think of anything I need in “10 minutes”. But guess what, quick e-commerce & 10-minute deliveries are seeing exponential growth. 10-minute delivery is the new 30-minute delivery.


Source

Not saying this is the only reason. Neither am I saying that private car owners aren’t to blame. But IMHO, this new breed of commercial vehicles are significant contributors to a significant decline in road manners. Most often, within the city, when I see idiotic drivers, it's usually on a vehicle with yellow plates.

Big fan of these services and I am a regular on Uber, Ola, Zomato & Swiggy. But their sole focus on quick turnaround times & serving the most number of customers in X number of working hours has destroyed general road sense in India. If your family's meals depended on you covering Juhu-Mahim in 20 minutes, how would you drive / ride? A fixed salary (instead of 30 bucks per delivery), monitoring of accident / incident rates per driver / rider, setting more realistic customer expectations in terms of delivery time, strict enforcement of rules by the traffic police etc. are the only ways to curb this menace.

Link to related discussion - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/stree...xecutives.html (A menace on the road: Food delivery executives)


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[Axe77]

Speaking for Mumbai, a few more points to add to the above.

1. Unlicensed low capacity electric two wheelers (as delivery vehicles)

These don’t have a registration plate but are no different from regular scooters for all practical purposes. They move about with even more impunity since there is no legal cost / consequence to them. (An ICE or regular registered EV scooter is at least in theory liable to be fined).

2. Eeco share taxis

In some sense, these are a new breed of taxis operating in a very specific manner. These again are operating on small regular routes as “share taxis”. Typically last mile connectivity between a major train station (for e.g. Mahalakshmi in Mumbai) to nearby office complexes. They again are on a mission to maximise their “circuits” / “rounds” and drive VERY rashly, also completely devoid of any traffic rule compliance. Again, a lot of impunity given strong union / political patronage I’m not sure what.

3. Two wheelers in general

Regardless of whether delivery vehicles or privately owned, these have started riding (and parking) like pedestrians. Move however and wherever they like. Traffic rules are not even a general guidance, let alone something requiring hard compliance.

[fordday]

Very timely thread. The situation in Bangalore is far worse than described above for Mumbai. The density of vehicles compared to the road size here is astoundingly high.

I have been driving and riding here for last 25 years but of late it seems I lost my driving skills. These set of drivers who do not care a hoot about causing accidents to themselves and others are so much more in numbers that they rule the road.

[DetectiveMiles]

Well written and timely, I have been seeing the same over past 2-3 years.
I have observed the behavior of private two wheeler riders is largely changed due to reckless driving of delivery services, when one person goes in the wrong side just to reach signal fast everyone follows. This leads tofrustration of the persons in Q ahead and they start the same next day and the police are not acting on several offences like No helmet, wrong way driving, jumping signal.
I have seen people ignoring the Traffic police unless they take photos and fine.
And when I drive in the right lane/wait for signal to turn green, people are honking without control as if I'm blocking their way deliberately.
Just need a bigger chill pill to stay calm these days .

[Kosfactor]

Before the arrival of these Ola \ Uber \ Swiggy - the most athletic riders were - Dominos Pizza guys. They have that X minutes or Pizza is free type deal.

Give the same targets to a cab driver, a small truck \ CV driver (Porter etc) etc and we have plenty of hunger guided missiles on the road with varying degree of destructive capabilities.

Also one need to note that most of the times during rush hour the CBD traffic will be Yellow boards (used to be a lot higher when there was no WFH), they are 'experienced' drivers that drive around with a different logic in their head than the average car driver. What may seem odd to the rest of us is perfectly normal to them in a day`s work!

What is the solution? In CBD at least lane discipline, rash driving etc can be monitored and fixed, but the rest of the roads, I do not think much can be done at the moment apart from education, awareness of driving discipline and road safety.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by GTO

...strict enforcement of rules by the traffic police etc. are the only ways to curb this menace.

As per my observation, the traffic police are also more lenient because the delivery folks and the cops have a mutual empathy - both have hard jobs in adverse environments trying to put food on their family's plates. The only way to curb this menace is to remove the economic incentives to fast deliveries.

[ninjatalli]

Adding my 2 cents.

Enough has been said about the commercial vehicles; and I agree with those views completely. But the personal vehicle owners (2W and 4W) aren't off the hook. Things have changed a lot and the impact on the roads is quite visible.

1. The #MeToo effect. If you see others following rules, chances are you'll be influenced to follow the rules too. The same also holds true, actually it applies more; given the large rule-breaking that commercial vehicles do on a daily basis.

2. Vehicles have become more powerful, more faster and easier to drive. The "fun" factor has gone up. This ends up driving more recklessly and taking un-necessary risks more.

3. Everyone's in a hurry. And with more bloated egos around the world, this brings more aggressiveness on to the road; irrespective of whether it's a personal car or a private car. People pride on getting to their destinations faster (e.g. today I reached office x mins earlier).

4. Rules breaking is fine. Fines haven't scaled up as much as the Indian spending capability has. The remote chances of getting a fine - I can pay that. Or ignore that till someone really holds a gun to my head.


The silver lining for this segment? Insurance rates are on the rise. Every mistake will be more expensive for the personal driver/owner. But unfortunately, that might be too less to make a change.

[Vishal.R]

Fully agree about commercial small trucks, and also two wheelers of food delivery but have different opinion about Ola / Uber, especially in Mumbai. Have observed that Ola / Uber cabs are driven far more batter compared to old black / yellow cabs.

[jigar1791@gmail]

Adding to what everyone has mentioned in the above posts, the general perception of the vehicle hierarchy chain is the fact that the larger vehicle involved will most likely be the culprit.

In any Indian city that I have driven/been driven around, it's the basic and an unsaid assumption that the larger vehicle will take care of the smaller vehicle around them.
This results in 2-wheelers --> 3-wheelers --> 4-wheelers --> CVs as the default safety ensuring pyramid while on the road.
Meaning, whenever a 2/3 wheeler tries to rashly maneuver around a 4 wheeler/CV, it's the latter's responsibility to ensure safety of the smaller one. And that thought gives ample push to the 2/3 wheelers to risk their moves, endangering their own safety + of those around them.

Another important observation : Atleast in Mumbai, where major arterial roads are always under construction or chocked, whenever a bottleneck is crossed by a large group of traffic, everyone seems to just pounce on the open patch of the road, and that again creates a safety hazard -
* with cabbies/CVs hogging the fast lane at a constant, but reduced speeds to maximize their fuel consumption, resulting in other vehicles forced to make their way around them
* 2/3 wheelers zig-zagging in every possible way only to quickly reach the next bottleneck, before everyone else
* buses occupying atleast 1.5 lanes towards the end of the roads to pickup/drop off pax
..and the list could go on and on

To add more, roads in Mumbai haven't seen a proportioned increase in sync with the volume of vehicles on our roads. Same could be for Bengaluru as well. It's natural to have flare-ups on the road, when the density of vehicles per KM has nearly doubled in a decade, meaning twice the number of vehicles are jostling for the same space today, then what it was a decade ago.

In hindsight, it's not just the CVs/cabbies responsible for creating an environment of non-adherence on our roads, but a sum total of : lack of space + the urge to be quick/fast + super-natural egos that create such setup foe sane folks like us to hit the roads everytime

[It's Magic]

The line 'We are too many, too much in a hurry, and too distracted,' says it all. Yes, the number of commercial vehicles has increased, and they often ignore road rules or manners as they are always in hurry. But I feel that urge to reach destinations quickly is prevalent among everyone these days. Also, there are too many traffic offenders on the road. I doubt the police can do much given such high numbers, besides taking sporadic small actions.

With ever increasing population, roads will be crowded regardless. No matter how many new roads you construct, how many roads you widen, or how many flyovers you build, it's just matter of time before they get congested too.
There are too many vehicles on the road, along with too many people, and constant road repair work. After COVID, the urge to own a personal vehicle increased, leading to even more vehicles on the road.

Efficient public transport can solve the problem to some extent, but no one seems to ready to make it robust. In my opinion, buliding a good public transport system can be one of the solutions to the current traffic mess.

I know I went a bit off topic, but I feel the root cause of all such issues is too many vehicles on the road.

Admins, please move my post to an appropriate thread if it's not suited here.

[arnieshwartz]

Originally Posted by ach1lles

We are too many, too much in a hurry, and too distracted.

Too many - By recent reports, India has overtaken China as the world's most populous country. Yes, we are too many. Yes, we are putting out too many vehicles on the road as our love affair with the automobile grows. Yes, the infrastructure is struggling to cope up in most cities. End result - congested cities with ever increasing traffic snarls and frayed tempers.

Too much in a hurry - We're all going somewhere and would ideally like to reach our destinations in one piece. The least we could do is share the roads with our fellow travellers in an amicable fashion. But no, we have to jostle and try and get ahead of others at every step. It's the human race and unfortunately we're all losing. The growing number of delivery riders who're vying for incentives tied to higher number of deliveries made isnt helping either. There are scores of two wheelers zipping across roads just so one business can one up the other and claim the fastest delivery times.

Too distracted - Smartphones, smartwatches, in-car screens, passengers, pedestrians, billboards and what not... there's a world of distractions surrounding us and if one is not committed to focusing on driving, it's easy to let the mind wander. It's a common scene to watch people ride bikes with their neck crooked as they speak on the phone, their attention half on the road and half on the conversation. Or, the delivery rider with eyes on the phone as they navigate traffic while traveling at high speeds. Even four wheeler drivers are not beyond blame. We often hear incidents of bus drivers, sometimes even those driving school buses, who watch YouTube videos while driving.

The myriad driving "schools" across the country only churn out people who can pass their driving test. Driving is a serious responsibility but a few minutes on any Indian road will convince you that there are countless folks who drive throwing caution to the wind. Basic rules that ensure driver safety arent adhered to. Those who should enforce the law only do so when it suits them, and most often it is only to line their own pockets. Fines arent paid, or are settled for lower amounts off the books. Nobody follows lane discipline and woe betide the upstanding citizen who chooses to drive safe - they will be submitted to a barrage of colourful language and/or physical abuse if anything happens for no fault of theirs. Indian roads are like the Wild West and it will take generations before growing awareness helps change the situation for the better.

[anjan_c2007]

It's a malaise that deters us from using the road many a time. "Might is right" are the keywords which this new breed swears by and adheres to.

In the olden days Fiats and Premiers were referred to as "gentleman's car". These were privately owned and mostly self driven. The Ambassadors and jeeps were not recognised as such maybe as a majority of these had chauffeurs and were owned by the government/firms/companies/taxi trade and so on. Privately owned Ambassadors and jeeps could have also been classified as the gentleman's cars but public opinion went by the majority, that were not privately/self owned.

The metamorphosis and winds of change over the decades has distinctly, even today kept these two old time classes apart and quite distinct. One is the Fiat/Premier class which covers the category of gentlemen drivers of today who maybe owning any brand now, be it bikes or cars. They are always on a defensive driving mode.

The other is the category of Ambassador/jeep drivers of yesteryears that has evolved over the years to include today's bikers from Blinkit, Big Basket, Swiggy, Zomato etc as delivery persons, the cab aggregators taxis that are App driven, plus all those from the miscellaneous categories, who drive the mightier vehicles recklessly to meet their master's set timelines to get bonus points for leveraging their careers.

Coming to the mightier vehicles, people from Kolkata always observe that both the private full size and minibuses who play the roadrace games and whose driver and crew (usually the conductor) rejoice with the reckless overtaking manoeuvres even on busy streets. They always try to outdo the other with a bid to emerge first, believing in the adage, "the early bird catches the worm." The government buses are always laggards in this Kolkata roadrace game.

Back to the topic, the reckless bikers risk their own lives and that of a few others, while the mightier vehicles on the prowl are a danger to numerous people, who may be their potential victims. Stiff fines, punishments and so on that we have observed with amendments to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules in 2019 have miserably failed to inculcate the sense of traffic discipline.

Our basic education needs to have "traffic safety" as a compulsory subject for all students. Maybe this can help.

[am1m]

"Let he who has never obstructed traffic cast the first stone."

The fact is, you can't pin the blame (even generally) on one particular class of vehicle or driver.

The bigger vehicles like buses jam things up worse, but they also carry a lot more people, so the "per capita inconvenience" is certainly lower than me in my single passenger SUV. On the other end of the scale, the bikes certainly are a nuisance buzzing around, but individually each bike occupies a lot less space than my car and so is less of an obstruction, either when moving or parked. No doubt the taxis guys are real thugs, but again their vehicle utilization is a lot more efficient than my private vehicle, so overall better for traffic. And so on.

The only indisputable fact is we are:

Originally Posted by arnieshwartz

Too many

And we all like to jam up in the same urban agglomerations, office locations (the "WFH" thread shows that most of us like to commute, even given the option not to!), and entertainment venues. So, going to be difficult to solve this issue.

[the.dogfather]

While I agree with the part about Swiggy and Uber, I think the quick commerce is misunderstood here. While I have no stake in any quick commerce company, what I have noticed is that most quick commerce deliveries are done on Yulu electric bikes, which are quite slow. The average speed is usually only 10-12kmph as per the app and their key differentiator is the close proximity of the delivery centers. Majority of the time, the delivery centers are within 2 kms from the location, which makes a 5 -10 minute commute quite feasible even at low speeds. Also, majority of the time, they do not keep up to the promised timelines, and the delivery guys are never in a hurry.
In comparison food delivery and cab delivery usually has much longer turn around times, and they tend to be more in a hurry.

[Raul258]

In Bangalore, it's not just the delivery drivers. A majority of privately owned two wheelers are reckless. No helmet, phone usage and reckless riding even with little kids standing in the front are the norm.
The truth is we don't have a sufficient number of police personnel to enforce rules.