[anjan_c2007]

This thread is dedicated to our own experiences while driving through our roads over the years or decades, to record our encounters with anything and everything with satirical and witty interpretations. These often make a mockery of one or more conventions, pragmatic practices, extant rules and laws which we observe almost on a daily basis. The situational irony that we encounter, interpreted and coupled with our wit and sarcasm would make interesting reading.

It's the same everywhere - north, south, east or west. The northeastern states have some semblances of good traffic sense, including strict lane discipline, which is lacking elsewhere. A few places in the north, south, east and west could be exceptions, but things are the largely the same everywhere.

Lane discipline in Shillong, Meghalaya







To start with :-
In a location, that was a crowded junction in a city without traffic signals and also without cops on duty, about 20-25 cars and about 20 two wheelers from all directions created a traffic jam when someone says, "even huge herds of cattle from different directions congregate at places, but move ahead with mutual understating and consent to have each one’s right of way".

When you emerge from a crowded road and just engage the overdrive of your car stepping on the gas, you will suddenly, within seconds, find some biker from somewhere emerging coming too close to your car.

When you overtake umpteen vehicles on a six lane highway and just emerge onto an assumedly, clear stretch, very soon you'll find a tanker on the right lane, an over loaded truck on the lane second from right, and a Tata Ace on the extreme left lane all moving at conservative speeds of about 50 kmph.

During the peak of summer your car AC conks off and you find your trusted AC technician closing shop indefinitely for some days to attend a marriage ceremony. During summers, many marriages are solemnised.

[anjan_c2007]

When you reach your destination and want to park your car, you find the parking lot on either kerbsides of the street jam packed. With God's grace you trace a vacant slot between the posteriors of two cars. And when you just try to take that turn to victory, to your chagrin, you spot a two wheeler cosily parked in the large space between the two cars.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

With God's grace you trace a vacant slot between the posteriors of two cars. And when you just try to take that turn to victory, to your chagrin, you spot a two wheeler cosily parked in the large space between the two cars.

Aah, pet peeve. With lack of space, two wheelers will squeeze and park in the tiniest gaps, but if there is space, they will park taking away a whole car's spot.

Same in tight traffic. "Halting to a stop" haters, they will flow through gaps like sand between stones in a jar. But open road? They will be in the middle of the road doing 40-50 km/h.

[jigar1791@gmail]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

This thread is dedicated to our own experiences while driving through our roads over the years or decades, to record our encounters with anything and everything with satirical and witty interpretations. These often make a mockery of one or more conventions, pragmatic practices, extant rules and laws which we observe almost on a daily basis. The situational irony that we encounter, interpreted and coupled with our wit and sarcasm would make interesting reading.

What a start to the weekend, where we can pen down our frustration, merrily assuming we can enjoy the weekend with an upcoming drive..only to encounter :

1. Buses hogging 1.5 lanes on the highway either to pickup/drop pax from bus-stops/pickup points
2. 2-wheelers/autos coming on the wrong side, and asking you to give them the right of way, you begin to question yourself whether you're in the right direction or otherwise
3. HCVs hauling at 40-45 kph on the 1st lane, and entire holding up a significant count of faster vehicles behind them, those vehicles trying hard to overtake the HCV, creating a bee formation, potentially endangering a larger group with a quick, yet dangerous overtake attempt

And the list could go on and on ..


But, the biggest one that I'd like to highlight is the fact that I have become more calmer and relaxed when on the road. The virtue of forgiveness, without the other one even asking for it.
And that calmness has sort of creeped in my personal/social interactions as well
If I can mind my own business and maintain my calm with multiple morons on the road whom I don't know, I should be equally patient when I'm around with my known ones

[anjan_c2007]

In the late 1990's I was moving on my Yamaha RX 100 almost trailing a Daewoo Cielo, with dark tint sunfilms on its glasses. The rear window glass was rolled down and some man's nose and lips were partly visible. He spit some post office box red coloured, paan (betel leaf) residue on the street, that I narrowly missed becoming a victim of. The window was instantly rolled up after he spit, unconcerned about his civic responsibility. The car moved on.

[pranavt]

Scenario: You want to take a left turn. Your line is (A). The neanderthal heading in the opposite direction (B), a distant cousin of *insert your favourite racer*, decides that they must hit the apex of the corner while taking their racing line. The neanderthal could be in a car, or on a bike, or driving a 3-wheeler, or riding an animal. Honking at them only offends them. They mutter abuses at you while navigating their turn.

Take a look at the attached picture.

[inner_roadster]

It can be frustrating when others don't follow traffic rules, especially when you're obeying them yourself. In many places, I have observed that rickshaws, bicycles, and pedestrians have a culture of crossing the road wherever it's convenient, regardless of signals or rules. I think many of us have seen that no traffic regulations apply to them, and even traffic cops ignore them. Here the most dangerous situation arises when, even on dual-lane roads, these people come from the opposite direction, risking both of our lives.

[Sam800]

Originally Posted by pranavt

Scenario:
Take a look at the attached picture.

Attachment 2602386

I daily encounter such drivers to that extent that whenever someone blocks my turn, either i wanna cry a river for missing basic sense in people or I wanna whoop everyone’s a** for being PITA ( not that I’ve done it) . I’ve even seen this behaviour in my relatives and no amount of making them understand works 😭

Many narrow roads lead to a mini traffic jam everyday multiple times just because a car wanted to hog the lane towards the turn the want to go to and block the incoming traffic

[alphamike_1612]

The biggest peeve is the use of high beam inside well lit city roads.

Activa users I'm looking at you for your bright white lights.

Most of my friends and a few in my family have this bad habit.

Infact a relative of mine always leaves the beam on high. He wears glasses too and when I ask him if it doesn't bother his eyes when others do the same, he replies "It does, but I want to see the road better, anyway they also do it." Mind you he's a professional.

When I get in, I ask him to change the beam to low, 10 minutes later, the blue Hi Beam light magically turns on in the dash again.

I'm exasperated at this and if I keep pointing it out, I'm looked at like I'm some rule Nazi.

A friend of mine didn't know that her scooter was on high beam or that her scooter had 2 light modes, when I pointed it out to her, she asked me what it was.

Mind you, this is another professional and one who's really good at it.

[pranavt]

I was waiting the lights a day ago, in front, probably thinking about how I should give meditation a go. Of course, every biker filtered through the millimetre-wide gaps (while bumping into everyone's rear view mirrors) and parked their bikes right in front of me. Frustrating, since they will accelerate to an eye-watering speed of 25 kph and hog every lane available. They now have to stop and wait because a couple of cops are waiting right in front of us. This act of stopping, you will notice, causes most bikers to behave erratically, as if they have to stop breathing the moment the bike stops. Maybe they do actually stop breathing when at a standstill. Anyway, I digress.

I noticed that pretty much every biker in front of me had their left hands in this position. Fingers curled to hold the handlebar, and that bloody outstretched thumb touching the Horn button.

Here you see the natural form of the left hand of every Indian bike rider and 3 wheeler driver.

[BullettuPaandi]

Once I was commuting back home on my motorcycle after a late night at the office, via this typical rural, double lane road with no lighting. It was just after a slightly rightward curved road where I was suddenly facing this full-sized van, with what must have been six or so pod lights (like the ones on rally cars), all on high-beam. To make things worse, he was crossing his lane, which all van drivers seem to do even for no reason; I suppose they all come from driving buses & they suddenly feel like they're driving an omni in a van. I was trying to move towards the left with my head slightly down, so I can see the end of the road. Then when I looked up again, there was this guy in a black shirt & black pants, riding a black motorcycle, with no headlight unit (yes, just the handle bar), trying to overtake the van, now right in front of me. I had no more room on my left, but luckily, he managed to quickly counter-steer out of my way. Took me a couple of seconds after all this to simply get a hold of what just happened, as I couldn't see anything after basically getting flash-banged by the van.

For all I know, the biker could've been Batman!

Originally Posted by pranavt

The neanderthal heading in the opposite direction (B), a distant cousin of *insert your favourite racer*, decides that they must hit the apex of the corner while taking their racing line.

'Neanderthal Racer' is not built to handle that extra bit of lateral G without having his brain slip right off.

[FAKER]

In adition to the aforementioned woes, the one gripe I have is; why on earth do the TikTok generation on their KTM's (mostly, and any other bike which is adequately equipped), use their hazard lights while riding, with no apparent hazard present.

It is either sheer ignorance or just lack of any idea what those lights are meant to function as.

Sorry for short comment.

[pranavt]

Originally Posted by FAKER

In adition to the aforementioned woes, the one gripe I have is; why on earth do the TikTok generation on their KTM's (mostly, and any other bike which is adequately equipped), use their hazard lights while riding, with no apparent hazard present.

It is either sheer ignorance or just lack of any idea what those lights are meant to function as.

Sorry for short comment.

They are the hazard. And since you bring up the point of hazard lights, I’d like to add another example of so many drivers who turn on their hazard lights during heavy rains. The lights are meant to signify that the car is stationary, and poses a hazard to anyone coming up behind it.

[anjan_c2007]

I was reading through an auto magazine about two plus decades ago. Hormazd Sorabjee was reviewing his Autobahn drive on a Porsche 911. He said that the moment car drivers sighted the Porsche on their rear view mirrors, they instantly gave it the right of way.

In India, to get right of way you do not need a Porsche. You only need a mighty full size SUV, preferably black ( could also be an old Scorpio 2.6 Crde) with illegally powerful bulbs on its headlights also fitted with huge auxiliary lights both above the front bumper and on its rooftop. And a jarring horn completes the list. Now drive with this on a highway. If its daytime use the ear shattering horn and maybe those auxiliary lights, to be sighted by the driver ahead as infuriating reflections on his rear view mirrors, straining his (eye) retina. The horn shatters his ear drums.

At night the horn plus all lights combo works wonders.

The black SUV gets full right of way and whizzes past the whole traffic in a jiffy.

[FAKER]

Originally Posted by pranavt

They are the hazard. And since you bring up the point of hazard lights, I’d like to add another example of so many drivers who turn on their hazard lights during heavy rains. The lights are meant to signify that the car is stationary, and poses a hazard to anyone coming up behind it.

Even in low visibility (rains/haze/fog), use of hazard lights is counter-intuitive. With hazards on, one is over-riding the lane change indicators/turn signals. There is no way of letting fellow drivers know one is changing lanes or turning, and more often than not, will end up in a messy situation.

Do we really need hazard lights on two-wheelers? Even with a stalled engine a two-wheeler can be moved away from moving traffic with relative ease as compared to a 4-wheeler. Just food for thought.