[sridharganesan]

Being part of a great motoring community and also being a concerned fellow human being, I want to warn my friends at Team BHP to be careful while approaching Bannerghatta Road from Nice Road.

Since I work for a company which is situated in Electronics City, I keep shuttling between my office in Bannerghatta Road/JP Nagar and Electronics City. Nice Road can be accessed from Bannerghatta Road by two routes. The first one is bang opposite to Meenakshi Temple which winds itself around a small village and then touches Nice Road. The other one is at Gottigere (copule of kms from Meenakshi Temple) which takes you around the Gottigere Lake and also joins the Nice road at the same point where the Meenakshi Amman route joins Nice Road.

The incident that I am referring to happened with one of my close relative who happens to be working at the same company where I am working. This gentleman was coming from office via Nice Road at 10.15pm and decided to take the route which touches Meenakshi Amman temple. He noticed 4 guys decently dressed indicating for a lift near the village that I mentioned earlier. My relative, being a good Samaritan decided to oblige and started slowing down the vehicle. But luckily he noticed that all the guys had one of their hands behind their back and he noticed that they were carrying huge sticks or some sort of equipment behind their back. He panicked and started rolling up his shutters immediately and increased his car’s speed. The four guys pounced on the car but luckily fell down by the wayside since my relative was turning and swerving on the road. By then these guys started hurling the sticks and stones on the rear side of the car. Result – the rear window got damaged and some dents on the bumper.

My relative was badly shaken not only by the audacity of the attack but also by the desperate measures took by the bandits when they jumped onto his car and tried smashing his window panes. Luckily he had all his windows rolled up and escaped a near robbery.

I thought it would benefit everyone if I relate this incident so that people coming from Nice Road onto Bannerghatta road will be careful about such incidents.

Things to remember on such isolated roads:
1. Please do not stop for providing lifts to strangers
2. Please roll up your windows so that these hooligans do not get a handhold when they jump onto your cars
3. Avoid such roads when you drive back home so late. Better to come via Hosur road when the traffic is also light. Now that they have widened the Hosur road, it is a pleasure to drive when there is light traffic.
4. Explore the option of car pooling so that you will have company during your drive and you contribute your bit towards saving fuel

Take care, guys.

Regards,
Sridhar

[snaronikar]

First things I do while travelling on this road at night is roll up windows, never stop the vehicle when anybody asks for lift whatever the case maybe. Similar incident has been reported in this forum itself. From then on I make it a point never to give any lifts to people especially in night and lonely stretches be it on NICE road or other roads. Better safe than sorry afterwards.

[unni.ak]

This is scary. I travel to office on bike and at most times i return home at around 1am.

[crn12]

The best of the options is the 4th, I would suggest everyone to use the car pooling facility if they have an opportunity! Safe & Affordable & then if you are alone avoid using any isolated roads..which rarely sees traffic & is close to any industrial area / it park etc...

[kannan666]

Originally Posted by snaronikar

First things I do while travelling on this road at night is roll up windows, never stop the vehicle when anybody asks for lift whatever the case maybe. Similar incident has been reported in this forum itself. From then on I make it a point never to give any lifts to people especially in night and lonely stretches be it on NICE road or other roads. Better safe than sorry afterwards.

+1 to that, well put !

[pranava999]

sure is scary, hope your relative brought it to the notice of the police.

[neoranjit]

I wonder why the cops don't take react. Off late, there seem to be too many instances like these being reported.

[CorsaLove]

Not similar but an incident happened with one of my colleague in Kormangala

He has an accent viva and was returning home from office around 1.30 in the night and was way-laid by 4 people on 2 bikes and robbed in the heart of Kormangala just 2 minutes away from the Kormangala police station.

This was near the deserted area in front of the Mocha Coffee shop on the way to forum from NGV!!

God only knows what's happening to this city!

[knp]

That's scary. Everyday, I take this route from my Electronic City office and I go through this village at around 11 pm on my bike...till now, not had any problem...but, I see some guys roaming around near that huge tree...and I am thinking that those guys belong to that village.

But, I will try to avoid this road..as I can't imagine myself in your relative place, that too on a 2-wheeler.

[gadadhar]

Thanks for the alert.. As rightly told, it is better to avoid these shortcuts during late hours (but can't call 10.15 pm as late), lift to strangers is strict NO NO in Bangalore now..

Locking all four doors is must while driving in Bangalore..Windows up and locking the doors can help in most cases.

[prince_pervez]

NICE becomes lonely stretch during nights. Whenever I want to touch
NH4 via NICE at wee hours, I go via city market, Bangalore University, and touch NICE. This route is buzzing even at 3AM .

During the day time it is safe to take the Arekere-Gotigere route.
Be careful guys! Recession is taking its toll, people are getting desperate!

[akroy]

This is very unfortunate and something like this happening in Bangalore is completely unheard off. Looks like some desperation creeping in due to recession / frustration etc.

We need to be very careful now.

Abhi

[karthik247]

The NICE road to Bannerghatta road is absolutely deserted at night especially after 11-12pm. And that road through that village is scary enough. The road is really small and full of pot holes that you cant drive fast, and end up being a easy target for robbers.

[Sankar]

If you have to take the NICE road from BG road i would advise you do it at Gottigere instead of Meenakshi Temple.

1) Less distance to BG mainroad from Nice road if you take the gottigere route.
2) You have less chance of running into trouble makers on Gottigere route.
3) There were too many problems associated with some people from that village.

Only problem is that you might be stopped at the Police checkpost, but if you're sober you don't have to worry. I don't know if they still have that checkpost there. First it was near Meenakshi temple and later shifted to near gottigere.

I used to stay near the area and know the place very well. Take the gottigere route, but just don't fall into the lake

[clevermax]

It may be even possible that you can use your car to scare off these guys, if you happened to slow down because these guys are blocking your way.

Stop at a distance, turn off headlamps, rev up the engine to the max, keep it in that race mode with frequent pumpings of the gas pedal. Spin the wheels while you try to take off, but stop before it hits them. In essense, appear crazy.

And, always you should know how to take off from these kind of situations fast. Many Indian drivers don't know how to accelerate through gears - all gears face premature death as the drivers shift to higher gear way way too early (In terms of rpm, and not time). It will take ages for them to reach speeds like 70-80 Kmph, even while driving cars like Fiesta 1.6S, Octy RS, or a Palio S10 for example. The faster you accelerate to safety, the less number of stones hit your car!


EDIT: Forgot to add a very important point. Make sure that the door are all locked when you start driving - nothing to worry in cars fitted with Autocop of similar stuff, but those who have cars with manual central locking or complete manual locking should always make this a habit.