Rants on Bangalore's traffic situation

[Aiel]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Huge traffic jam towards NICE Road junction from Meenakshi Temple/Mall. Saw couple of ambulance rushing in that direction as well, hope its not something serious.

The jam was also from NICE road side towards Meenakshi temple (from 6 to about 8.30). We had to go out, but decided against it due to the traffic situation. It seems to have cleared now.

[binand]

I had landed at the BIAL on Friday late evening. The first thing one would see after exiting the airport was the GVK notice that Vayu Vajra services would be unavailable due to the strike. The chaos at the taxi line was unprecedented and resembled Churchgate ticketing office on the day summer vacation tickets are opened.

Fortunately for me, the employer is fine with reimbursing the parking cost, so I now drive leisurely in my own car to/from the airport for my work trips

[bharat4ever]

Looks like Infants are getting a pretty bad name all over the city. Especially the Sapient buses and those JCBL buses are atrocious in their driving.

[praful]

Did BTP hand over the roads of Bangalore BMTC buses, autos and cabs ?

They all drive like they own the road. I am sure the older I get the more road 'ragicious' I'll get, its getting really hard to keep calm!

Two instances :-

1. A few weeks back I was on my way to work in the morning, there were two lanes of cars parked on my direction, so I could not effectively see if someone was coming out of the lane. So there is this auto fellow looking in the opposite direction who suddenly emerges out of from front of the cars. Thankfully I was crawling in second because the roads were bad and I was being careful of these kind of incidents, yet as the auto emerged suddenly I was startled and stood on the brake so I came to a skidding halt and the auto driver almost pooped his pants because he was not even looking in my direction. So this guys starts shouting at me, for a second or I felt like clubbing this guys head with a baseball bat but better sense prevailed I just continued on my path!!!

2. Signal turns green and the Indica cab in my left lane lurches ahead and cuts across to my lane almost pushing me into the median, had I not braked evasively the cars would rubbed very well against each other.

These just two incidents that are fresh in my mind, similar stuff keeps happening everyday in different flavors. Just ranting coz I felt like stopping the car and belting these folks!

Another incident that happened about 2 years back, I was riding back from work on my bike, there is a truck to my right and cab in front of me and no space on the left unless I squeeze onto the edge of the road. Now this bolero comes up behind me and starts honking incessantly, but where the hell do I go. This continues for almost 2 minutes till the Bolero dude finds a small gap and overtakes me from the left almost pushing me under the truck. I see him looking at me in the rearview mirror, so I give him a "whats going on sign?". At the next signal I thought I'd pull up next to him and give him a piece of my mind, the moment I come close he starts of with choicest of colourful words in Hindi, surprising considering I am in Bangalore and have not given any hint yet that I speak Hindi. The probably his son about 23-25 years old steps out of the passenger side and hitting me. Thankfully I am fully geared and non of his blow really hurt, I could have easily retaliated by landing a blow which would have hurt REAL bad considering my riding gloves can be deadly knuckle buster if used as for punching. But I knew in my head the I stopped to retaliate, there would be mass ruckus and the Bolero guy would have the sympathy of the public since he was with family and I am "biker" with a out of state (TN) registration!

Sometimes I wonder if its just cowardly to not try to react to these low lifes!!!

Sorry for the extended rant!!!

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by praful

Sometimes I wonder if its just cowardly to not try to react to these low lifes!!!

In my opinion it is not cowardly at all. The biggest problem with our traffic today is impatience. I wish all our drivers would realize that they will reach your destination when they will. Driving fast and rash in places like Bangalore just does not make sense. The average speed meter in my car has never gone above 30kmph in Bangalore city traffic.

We all encounter such people everyday and the best way to deal with them is just ignore them. They are not going to get anywhere faster than you. At max you will find them stopped at the next signal. My mantra of driving in city traffic, if anybody behind you is in a hurry, just let them go the first chance you get.

The aim of getting on to the roads is to reach your destination, so you might as well reach it in a cool and calm frame of mind.

[mayankjha1806]

Last week thrice i saw accidents on the Bellandur Lake road. The one which connects Yamloor to Bellandur and goes along the lake. The road is so narrow and taxi folks speed up like crazy sometimes.

Once it was an Innova, than a City, today it was Hyundai Accent lying on the left side of the road next to the lake water, only stopped by the wired barricade.

Anyone has any idea how these accidents happened? Posting so as drivers can be careful while on this road.

[reswaran]

It took well beyond an hour today to commute from near Kundalahalli to RMZ Infinity near KR Puram, and that too by a motorcycle! KR Puram right from near the station to the Suranjandas road is completely chock a block today. Days are never meant to be started like this.

[sansvk]

Road Rage:
This incident happened at 8.45am today at the Marathahalli Bridge. I was on my regular commute from Airport Road to EPIP. Regulars on this strech would know that there would be either a traffic block or slow moving traffic from the Marathahalli Bridge to Kundalahalli junction. I was on the mid lane, a rashly driven white swift comes and stops next to me on the right lane. The young driver switches off the car and comes out; promtly stoping the car (driven by another young guy) behind him. A few comments exchanged and the blows started raining . The second car had a passenger who also promptly got involved.

Traffic starts moving again and I got out of there. I have seen verbal altercations but this was the first time on Bangalore Roads have I seen real action (filmy style). Both drivers didnt look like localities and seemed well educated. Way to go guys, keep it up!

[manjubp]

Originally Posted by sansvk

Both drivers didnt look like localities and seemed well educated. Way to go guys, keep it up!

I drive every day from Bangalore west to Bangalore East (ORR), via koramangala, silk board onto ORR, towards Marath halli.

Driving for last 15years in Bangalore, every day, here are my observations, which is aiding or contributing to Road Rage.

1. Increase in travel time and work pressure
2. Wider roads, powerful cars and less road to drive
3. Slow moving vehicles on right side, including educated premium car drivers talking on cell phone and blocking two right lanes, no honking wont help they are thick skinned, like buffalo
4. Worst, refusal to give way to faster moving vehicle
5. Cutting across the other vehicles

Lastly so called educated drivers, needs to learn to be civilized. Unfortunately Education is not brining in Civilization.
Many times feel so bad, these educated drivers, don;t even slow down to senior citizens, school kids and even to ambulances.

Until we can't change these educated drivers, expecting some decent behaviour from Taxi/BMTC/Auto drivers may be too much to expect.

[shashank.nk]

Assume this happens:

You are driving safely following all rules,a rash driver tries to overtake you, due to whatever reason he can't.

The man loses his cool,gets ahead of you somehow and blocks your car, a few words exchanged( you remain calm and respectful) but he resorts to physical attack.

What do you do ? Do you also return the favor (punches et all) OR block his blows and try and get away from him (some may call this cowardly and may make the attacker more aggressive )

This is an exaggerated situation and probably worst case scenario, but knowing our road etiquette (lack of it that is) the day this may happen is not far away. Like sansvk has posted.

What would I do- (Easier said than done,ofcourse) I'd get away from him even if it means he lands a few punches on me,note down his car registration number and take legal action later.

[shankar.balan]

In Indira Nagar on the road which turns off next to East Cultural Association and on which National Public School is located, it is absolute chaos.

The NPS buses park along this street on the side of the road, exactly as they like and if one drives past in the morning,one will see no less than a dozen or more buses parked like this on this narrow street.

Is this legal? I think this great school must have paid the cops some nice fat sums of money to allow this. No way it is permissible on the erstwhile leafy lane, which has now become such a busy connecting road.

[blackfire_9]

This is something that can easily happen on our roads today & what you have said is actually the right way of handling such situations in my opinion as well. However, some times, just to get away from such situations, you need to use force. You may need to punch the other guy or kick him, just to ensure that you can get away.

Lastly, I think what leads to such incidents of road-rages is the egos of the people involved. One should learn to swallow their ego, lest they are prepared for such incidents more often.

Originally Posted by shashank.nk

Assume this happens:

You are driving safely following all rules,a rash driver tries to overtake you, due to whatever reason he can't.

The man loses his cool,gets ahead of you somehow and blocks your car, a few words exchanged( you remain calm and respectful) but he resorts to physical attack.

What do you do ? Do you also return the favor (punches et all) OR block his blows and try and get away from him (some may call this cowardly and may make the attacker more aggressive )

This is an exaggerated situation and probably worst case scenario, but knowing our road etiquette (lack of it that is) the day this may happen is not far away. Like sansvk has posted.

What would I do- (Easier said than done,ofcourse) I'd get away from him even if it means he lands a few punches on me,note down his car registration number and take legal action later.

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

In Indira Nagar on the road which turns off next to East Cultural Association and on which National Public School is located, it is absolute chaos.

The NPS buses park along this street on the side of the road, exactly as they like and if one drives past in the morning,one will see no less than a dozen or more buses parked like this on this narrow street.

Is this legal? I think this great school must have paid the cops some nice fat sums of money to allow this. No way it is permissible on the erstwhile leafy lane, which has now become such a busy connecting road.

Take it up with BTP on FB. Here is what I did with an ongoing issue for almost 2 yrs now in front of ITPL, wrote to BTP and in 2 days time action was taken.

Read here : https://www.facebook.com/BangaloreTr...96343687098011

[WindRide]

In some countries, they drive on right side of the road, in others, the left.
We indians usually drive on what is left of the road.

Sorry, couldn't resist

Relax, it can only get worse from here..

[motomaverick]

A really good initiative by BTP is the launch of Mobile Traffic update app called Magic Genie. Its a free app for Android & Iphone and I just checked, it was pretty accurate for the Sony World signal in Koramangala.