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-   -   Traffic and life on the roads in Chennai (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/68789-traffic-life-roads-chennai-7.html)

You will be amazed to know the reason for this. It was due to a slow moving Earthmover. since it was moving slowly (around 20 kmph) everybody including share auto which go at 25 kmph try to overtake it without looking at what is there in his right lane. Add impatient MTC drivers as well and you have the perfect recipe of traffic jam especially if this earthmover guy wanted to cross a chicane. You do not need a blockage to create a jam! just need a slow moving vehicle. BTW the lorries are banned in OMR during peak hours, but I still see lorries on the road.

Observed a toyota corrola (foreign registration) breaking rules & driven in a rash manner along the saidapet-maidhya kailash stretch.

I left to ECR from annanagar at 6 PM, it was raining cats and dogs here in annanagar & by the time I reached Thiruvanmiyur at 7:30 there was no sign of rain :-). Dined at Basera, right opp to Voodoo on the ECR, fully packed & got to have some good biriyani. I absolutely love this place.

Just came back from Thoraipakkam, at 12:20 in the night, the share autos occupy the right most lane & even after consistent honking/flashing they take a while to move to the left most lane, they ensure that people downshift the gears before passing by:deadhorse. I find a toll of 35 rupees difficult to digest especially when one wants to dine in at places like Delhi dhaba/sachin ka dhaba which are hardly kms from the toll..

There was police at every junction on the annasalai road today all the way from Saidapet till nungambakkam, Do you folks know the reason, it was very unusual.

Thanks for the info, DWind !

I remember one incident a couple of years ago, near the Kasi theatre on 100 ft road. There was a major traffic jam in that area : traffic gridlock from Ekkatuthangal upto Vadapalani signal from around 6:00 pm upto 8:30pm. I came to know the reason for this unusual traffic jam (normal traffic is itself slowmoving in this stretch during peak hours) from a traffic SI on duty there : it seems an LCV (over-)loaded with rice bags going south had a breakdown, just after crossing the Kasi theatre signal. This happened around 6:00pm. This immediately started causing a pileup, due to the reasons cited above in your post. The LCV was towed to the side of the road after about 30 mins, but the traffic had already started piling up on either side, and it was peak hour traffic anyway. When the situation eased out, and traffic flow returned to normal, it was about 9:00pm.

Good example of how one small traffic block leads to a major traffic gridlock (which will take hours to come back to normal), due to the disorderly behaviour of all road users.

Drove home tonight, after a splendid carnatic violin concert. There had been heavy rain during the evening and, of course, there are no road-water drains, not even on modern. recently-built stretches, so there was quite a bit of standing water about. Nothing to worry about, just trying to stay in the shallower bits, trying not to drench pedestrians and bikers (who were pretty wet anyway) and remembering to dry the brakes after a deeper bit.

Heading South on the OMR, I stopped at the Thiruvanmiyur junction, middle lane, a few cars back from the signal, and made my mistake: I turned the engine off. This is a slow signal, and there is certainly a fuel saving to be made. I didn't reckon on a wet engine. Green light comes, turn the key, get a slowish chugging noise and nothing else. The guy behind me manages to back off and get around.

Spend the next few minutes alternately directing traffic around my car (either side will do, it's right in the middle!), realising that I am not strong enough to push my car (no surprise, zero-muscle wimp from birth, although I would, eventually, have reached the side of the road) --- and trying the engine again.

A guy stops, asks if I need help, says he will park across the junction and come back.

While he is doing this, an auto driver runs over, correctly assesses my efforts at pushing and says he'll do it, and organises another car to move so we can get to the side.

Just as he begins, I give the engine another go and it fires. Just as this happens, a biker stops and asks if I need help, and the first guy reaches me, and I give him a lift back to his car.

So, a big thank you to all those friendly helpers!

it was raining yesterday evening in chennai.on my way back home i usually take the lanes through besant nagar to my home at thirvanmiyur, to avoid the LB road snarl.

yesterday from adyar enfield showroom onwards there was a swift tailgating my car honking flashing and trying to overtake where there is no space available:Frustrati

he would'nt overtake when there is space.finally he overtakes me dangerously. He is in a swift vdi TN 02. we reach a road where only two cars can pass and tries to overtake and fiesta thereby getting stuck sincethere was an auto facing him.the fiesta moves ahead and i follow the fiesta in the left lane.as soon as i am paralell to the swift this guy tries to bulldoze his way ahead of me thereby brushing his orvm against mine. to avoid further damage i go to the left and didnt notice (rains and bad visibility) a cycle cart on the left and my cars left doors got scratched.

he was all the time trying to overtake the fiesta but couldnt do it was flashing honking.

sigh!!this guy will surely kill someone on the road one day or get killed.

whatever the thread starter has said is so true. having driven in different cities and highways i would rate chennai to be the worst in terms of traffic.with thousands of morons on the roads in bikes,mopeds,govt buses(drivers),autos,share autos,commercial vehicles and now i could also personally experience cars with morons behind the wheels.

there is utter disregard for rules, other vehicles and other road users.

It's utter disregard for their own safety --- but hey, people like this are immune from mundane stuff like accidents, injury and death:deadhorse

Driving like this, in wet weather particularly, is so dangerous. It really is necessary to get these people off your tail, even if that means stopping to get rid of them. If you have to do an emergency stop, there is no chance of them not hitting you, even in dry weather.

If you want to irritate them (and just maybe, make them think), there is what I call passive-aggressive braking. You slow up, gently so that they do not ram you, and also slowly enough so that they stay where they are. When you stop, they are too close to overtake, and must stop too. After a few seconds, you can then accelerate away. It's particularly satisfying if your diesel leaves them in a cloud of black smoke as you rev hard ;)

Once you've got them past, stay well back, in case they decide to play not-so-passive braking in front of you. I usually give a cheery wave as they overtake.

as you said, they really dont care, why else would someone drive like therez no tomorrow!!

i feel that all these guys with suicidal tendencies should be treated with electric shock at places where it hurts most:uncontrol

i dont know the names of the roads, but all i can say is that the complete route is small lanes with lots of turns through residential areas.its the right turn after enfield showroom in adyar(or is it besant nagar).its the road which leads to thiruvanmiyur from adyar via besant nagar.

i did slow down twice in straight roads where there was suffient space(but water logged) to let him go but he didnt for reasons best known only to him.could be because the few places on this route where there are wide roads, were full of water on both sides.

Guess you are talking about Anna Street. I know, grew up there. Its what happens when a place which was never planned in terms of road width / drainage sees a sudden surge in population and traffic.

Guys I always have this question in my mind. Perungudi TOLL... I was heading towards OMR from Tidel park. There is a Toll Booth at Perungudi and I paid 20 or 30 for the entry to OMR. After sometime I felt of taking diversion to ECR and Took left at the Signal Which heads to Shollinganallur, the right leads to Tambaram and the left leads to ECR. For my surprise Again there is a TOLL and he wont accept the previous entry ticket and asked me to take a fresh one. I had to shell out 20 again

I dont understand as its hardly 8 kms between the tolls.

Can anybody explain?

Are you talking about the toll on the road which leads to ECR? If so, what he has told you is pure BS. You can use the toll ticket which you took on entering (that too Rs.19 ticket is enough), as you have only entered once in one entry and exited once at the other end.

If you are talking about the toll plaza on ECR, it is totally different and has nothing to do with OMR toll.

A couple of tips:
1. Before taking left towards ECR, there is a lane near Axis Bank. You have to go slow or you'll miss it for sure. You can bypass the toll booth leading towards ECR and the crowded signal by taking this left. But go slow, because all cabbies use this regularly.

2. If you are going to drive to Mahabs, I suggest drive all the way down OMR and reach Mahabs. It is way, way better than ECR nowadays in terms of traffic. For this too, one Rs.19 ticket is enough. Of course, you will have to pay ECR toll when joining ECR, which is a different matter.

Thad, I'm glad you got help. Here is the other side. One of the chaps working for me was telling today that yesterday night there was a "gora" in a swift blocking traffic at the junction. He thought you were one of those foreigners who got ambitious and wanted to try their driving skills in India and was cursing you for the same. :eek:. I'll let him know on Monday on what really happened.

small world. People working for safe drive actually spot Thad and pass a comment!
BTW Thad. Who's violin concert was that? I miss those amazing music concerts of chennai.

Yes, its quite true that there're lots of helping minds, atleast, here in Chennai that I've seen. There're several instances when people come running asking for help. In that way Kumbakonam beats Chennai to core. When I come stand on extreme left at a junction, people run coming asking, if I need any help on directions.

People are more scared of getting drenched than a speeding car. They leave way when they're about to get splashed by stagnant water, however they don't leave way for a speeding car. Has anyone observed this?

Ha Ha! Gora with about 18,000km of Chennai driving under his belt :) I bet he giggled at my vesti, hitched up to knee hight, too! I guess I must have done a few thousands of km of vesti wearing, too...

You can tell him that he's quite wrong about one thing: the ambition! Never had any, or I'd much better off :D

Anyway, I won't pass judgement on anyone for not helping, but I might not have either --- although I have done, in the past. Last time, I got wet feet helping a guy push his car in the snow. Just how much my meagre body weight contributed, I don't know, but I just felt I could not drive past.

Yeah. They'd rather get killed than dirty. When they get killed, they don't know they are dead. When they get dirty, they know it very well. And to carry that stench and dirt around. So they'd rather get killed.
lol: