[DRC]

Lack of infrastructure is no excuse to drive without disciplene. Period.

Lack of enforcement is the main cause along with others to the lack of disciplene. This is my observation.

Bangalore traffic cops are under very high pressure due to various reasons, including those which are creations of themselves.

Pressure point 1: Very high density of traffic.

PP2: Political pressure to be not so hard on enforcement. I am a bit cinical here, somehow 11:30 curfew enforcement seem to be very religious.

PP3: Their own crazy oneway rules have made them work harder for no reason. To quote one example, the roads around Planetorium and Rajbhavan. It looks like a lot of circus has been going on just to avoid a signal infront of Rajbhavan gate. So with the present system, all are forced to change lanes quickly with in short distance. vehicles from race course towards cubbon road will be changin lane before high grounds police station from left to right, and from cubbon road to golf course on the same road will be changing right to left. This road is 50 mts in length. Same on the Rajbhavan road between High grounds PS and BWSSB tank. People who want to get into the Basaveswara circle (further into south of bangalore, Remember this is the north south link ) will have to fight for their way with those who came from west side of BLR who are going towards east side Rajbhavan road.
There are numerous examples like this I can quote.

PP4: BMTC and Auto rickshaw are the menace (as everywhere else) and cops can not stop them and talk stern as they are backed by associations with political back ground and can cause public inconvenience at the slightest provocation. So cops usually keep off of them.


So the bottom line is..
The traffic policies are not designed with any scientific or rational basis.
No Motivation for the traffic cops who are overworked and hence lack of enforcement. No enforcement, no disciplene. result traffic anarchy .

[sandeep108]

We are like this only my dear friend. It will take another 150 years before we can call ourselves civilised or civic minded.

[black12rr]

@sandeeep108 and all :
Only one solution " Be the change you want to see " .Unfortunately many will not follow this .

[troy_aikman]

Since some folks are saying this is an all-India issue, I was wondering if there has been a study to find the vehicle-mix of the different cities. A lot of people I know in Bangalore claim that the city if filled with two-wheelers and the autos (rickshaws) and you can never get lane discipline that way. I get the impression ( I have never visited Mumbai or Delhi recently) that they have a large number of cars with few two wheelers and lot of people using the public transport - trains,buses.

I am also puzzled why economies of scale (man - can't believe I used that term - I thought it was only used in CNBC and by upper management :-) would not have driven autorickshaw drivers to upgrade to a taxi. I mean when most of your clientele is getting wealthier - you ought to move up to a CityTaxi and charge them more !

[ST7677]

I completely agree with DRC.

While it is similar situation all over India. Bangalore is worse of the lot.
The number of accidents are too high when you compare it to the number of vehicles in the city or it's population. which is bad...

Also recently there was some study being presented on a news channel, which shows that BLR has slowest avg traffic speed 16km/hr

[Mpower]

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore in a span of 3 weeks, and by far Bangalolre was the worst and Delhi was the best when it comes to traffic.

[scorp 1]

It's just not B'lore, its almost everywhere in India. NCR/Delhi is no exception.
The problem gets grave because almost *every and any kind of vehicle* plies on the road, coupled with menace such as hawkers and encroachers on the streets, nonsensical driving, snail paced traffic on the right and middle of the road, no lane marking (even if there is, who cares), buses stopping and waiting at anyplace they like, trucks trying to outpace each other, occupying almost the entire road. There is practically no governance and regulation to ban or divert different modes of transport.
Unless there is some serious research done, and actions taken, no amount of flyovers or speedways would be able to resolve these issues.

PS - I forgot to mention holy cows on the road

[sandeep108]

Originally Posted by scorp 1

PS - I forgot to mention holy cows on the road

So many 'holy' cows. Not to be touched. We try our best to be civil and easy going, but who cares.

Actually I wonder when we are all trying to win races in our traffic, why only dear NK made it to F1. Looking at the way autos, taxi drivers, etc. all try to cut the corner in true racing lines, F1, F3, et al should be full of us guys...

[ajitkommini]

Originally Posted by Mpower

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore in a span of 3 weeks, and by far Bangalolre was the worst and Delhi was the best when it comes to traffic.

I agree completely! No driving experience in Chennai/Mumbai (except riding in cabs), but I lived in Delhi for a year and a half before moving to bangalore. While Delhi/NCR has its own set of problems (agression, overspeeding etc.) the utter lack of discipline is unique to bangalore.

I would say upto 80% of the jams are caused by plain stupidity of drivers who block oncoming traffic. I would advocate concrete medians between lanes. Although this would cut the effective road width even further, this is the only thing that would force drivers to stick to their lane.

[kph]

Anyone can debate on this subject for any long.. But, unfortunately the fact remains the same. A remedy to this lies very far.
The basic reason to any issue on road is that we don’t have enough roads to accommodate the growing population of vehicles.
What is the solution then? I would say effective utilization of available resources..
But how?
Adding some zeroes to fine amount? That too in India?
Hello….
We know the attitude and intensions of cops here.. So rule it out.
If some social service agencies could come up with some kind of a public awareness program for drivers, that might help. Effective utilization of the media will help a lot.
Let me share with you one good practice our company’s transport dept has come up with to encourage smooth driving by our cab drivers. They announced grading for cab drivers. Drivers with decent history get better grades, certificates and pay hikes. Believe me, it worked. Our cab’s accident rate has come down drastically.

[spadival]

Originally Posted by ajitkommini

I would advocate concrete medians between lanes. Although this would cut the effective road width even further, this is the only thing that would force drivers to stick to their lane.

Then there are idiots who take a short cut on the wrong side of the road.. because there is a median and they cant cut across. These dunderheads want to save a few mins/ drops of petrol by risking other people's lives.

[kph]

Anyone can debate on this subject for any long.. But, unfortunately the fact remains the same. A remedy to this lies very far.
The basic reason to any issue on road is that we don’t have enough roads to accommodate the growing population of vehicles.
What is the solution then? I would say effective utilization of available resources..
But how?
Adding some zeroes to fine amount? That too in India?
Hello….
We know the attitude and intensions of cops here.. So rule it out.
If some social service agencies could come up with some kind of a public awareness program for drivers, that might help. Effective utilization of the media will help a lot.
Let me share with you one good practice our company’s transport dept has come up with to encourage smooth driving by our cab drivers. They announced grading for cab drivers. Drivers with decent history get better grades, certificates and pay hikes. Believe me, it worked. Our cab’s accident rate has come down drastically.

[skiddyrow]

i would have to agree with the author on this one. I just drove down from Chennai to Bangalore a few days back and it took me around 4 hours to get to Hosur on a stunning NH7, and then nearly two hours to cover the last 30 km spoiling the whole experience. A drive from Jayanagar to MG road took me an hour and 40 minutes on a Saturday afternoon and the frustration of having people cutting me off at all points and driving on the wrong side of the road and trying to muscle their way back in left me totally irritated. I will never complain about the Chennai traffic again! While Chennai has its share of problems as well, i've never felt this frustrated in a long time.

[ajmat]

Then there are idiots who take a short cut on the wrong side of the road.. because there is a median and they cant cut across. These dunderheads want to save a few mins/ drops of petrol by risking other people's lives

I find people driving over the divider on the outer ring road. Fatal if people are driving at high speeds

Let me share with you one good practice our company’s transport dept has come up with to encourage smooth driving by our cab drivers. They announced grading for cab drivers. Drivers with decent history get better grades, certificates and pay hikes. Believe me, it worked. Our cab’s accident rate has come down drastically.

That is what they do in Shanghai - result -straightforward, no hassle taxi's

[muni]

hmm.. having lived in bangalore all my life, i have seen many roads in bangalore turning from no signal to signal and

1) Roads turing to roads with yellow medians
2) Roads with yellow medians to roads with solid dividers.
3) Roads with dividers turning to One way

4) Roads being taken over by Flyovers

But the traffic jam continues.

Lack of foresight from the Govt Part, Lack of common sense from the drivers part, bursting vehicle population are few of the reasons.

Afterall this one of those bitter pills you gotta swallow if you wanna live in namma bengluru. I see mysore following in bangalore's footsteps and hope they dont spoil that beautiful city too.

Haha now soon i see Bangalore's name changing to Bengluru. I dont like the new name but..