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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-105.html)

After spending close to 4 1/2 years in Chennai, I've had to relocate to bangalore last fortnight.

And i must say - I MISS CHENNAI ROADS!

No, there were no corners, not much fun to be had - but they were smooth! Bangalore has some good roads which suddenly disappears into road work/ bad patches - which tends to shake the car/ occupants badly - and it happens quite so often!

ThePunter,

I live near the flyover, and the Vijaynagar signal is a mess. I seldom go home taking Bypass Road; will have to wait through several greens, sitting at the signal for a good 30 minutes, no kidding. I prefer to take Velachery Main road, then turn right there. One can do that in one green signal instead of waiting for three or four since the queue to turn right is so minimal. Velachery Main Road is narrow, the surface is bad, and sometimes, one has to wait behind a bus at the bus stop. Despite all this, I still come out ahead.

Getting out of my home, if I need to go on Bypass there is a left much before the signal that one can take and reach Bypass Road well after the junction. If I need to go to Velachery Main Road or continue on Taramani Link Road, I don't have a choice but to sit in traffic.

The proposed flyover will actually be built and opened at a time when things will have become so bad it won't make any difference. Long before then, I will be out of here, and in another congested city!

The new Phoenix CityMarket has opened up in Velachery. This mega mall is only adding on to the already congested Velachery Main Road. To enter the mall, one has to take the by-pass, then a U turn, come back to the signal and then turn left! So much for a mall entry! This is just the Phase 1 of the mall that's open. I can imagine the madness when all the phases are open to the public!

Having said that, the mall is superb, very much at par with malls in Dubai or Singapore. Parking invokes a flat rate of Rs.100 which I reckon is better than other malls who charge by the hour. With better traffic management, this mall is the place to be to spend a nice evening!

Well! Both the alternate ways to avoid the signal as you mentioned do save a lot of waiting. I myself being a follower, but doesnt do it always, but do it on judgement. The "up" decision is rather easy to take- u just see yhe CROWD ahead while coming down the bridge, and the take any of the lefts, few days when a culvert work was in progress, I even went through the side of AGS colony to join near the metro filling station.
Now, of the "down" direction, I prefer Velachery main road only during 8 to 8:30 pm or so, which I have generally observed takes waiting and waiting. Again, more than a few times other timings as well has taken much higher waiting times! But for this too, I dont prefer to go straight at the beginning of byepass into VM road, (to get rid of Gandhi road & Dhandeeswaram jn bottle necks) but take a left about a few hundred metres before the metro filling station, albeit being a narrow rough lane, it helps to reach after the 2 above mentioned bottle necks.
While this gives you more than one option to byepass crowd, the one at Checkpost seems to have no answer :(

For the last 2 days, there seems to be some road laying work between Paranur toll and Mahindra City entrance. So they have closed the carraigeway towards Chennai and all traffic is through the 2 lanes which are towards Chengalpattu. There was a long queue of vehicle in the evening and an ambulance was held up there yesterday for a long time.

Why couldn't they make some way for the ambulance in lanes where work is going on? They could have made some way and let the ambulance pass, at least using the shoulders.

All we could do was pray.

Am i the only one who feels that the city conditions are improving? I see a lot of people smiling at each other while on road. I do say that while people from our city have a sense of humour, they usually seemed to flare up at the slightest provocation. On a funny note, an accident happened and the guys got out and were ready to trade blows one guy notices the other guy's zip was undone and the guy suddenly started laughing. This guy was surprised and angry as well, he suddenly shouted and asked the other guy if he was mad. The other guy, who now had tears in his eyes because of laughing pointed to him and said " Saar unga Jip is open". Everyone present there started laughing. This is the first accident that ended on a happy note.

OT: Is anyone aware of how much road tax one has to pay when the car is purchased for under 10L?

Is there any reasons why the cabbies (especially those who transport IT employees) drive so recklessly. They cut across and are always in a hurry.
My office is in DLF IT park and i can see lots of cabbies who drive very carelessly and how come the employees are not complaining about this.

Is there any time limits for them to follow. Last time i saw a winger at around 9.00 pm near adyar indranagar driving pretty badly moving to oncoming traffic's lane then cutting back to his lane. I overtook him in my scooty and he was tailgating me closely. Caught him at the signal and asked him why are you driving so recklessly with so many employess. He told i didnt cause any damage right. Then i thought no use talking to him.

But some how when i was in bangalore last week for 4 days i didnt find any one driving like this. But again in another thread related to bangalore traffic they have mentioned the same issues.

Vishnu,

I too work at DLF. Even those cabbies used to race inside DLF campus itself. I have already fought with them multiple times. Even I complained to Security guys and they stopped and warned.
In roads, they are real F1 drivers. Wherever they see open space in the traffic they ride their car to the area without watching near by vehicles. Especially in the U turn, simply they pass over all vehicle waiting for their turn in the next lane and cut perpendicularly and take the turn.
If the company or the employees inside the cab could teach & warn them to drive safe.
Otherwise no one can restrict those cabbies.

Hi karthik

Nice to hear that you working out of DLF, can meet up some time. There is no point unless all the employees complain and bring up this issue. I don't understand the point in clelebrating "DLF Safety week" if these issues are not addressed. Even some bikers and private cars do drive fast inside the campus.

I work in DLF as well. We should arrange a meet. What do you say guys?

A lot of T-Bhpians are working at DLF. I have seen some 5-6 cars with T-Bhp stickers.
Yep, we can.

I love it that riders in Chennai suddenly decide to stop in the middle of the road. Often you will see either a solitary rider stopped in the middle of the road, either talking on the phone or just admiring the scenery. especially at night. Sometimes 2 two wheelers suddenly decide to hold a conference in the middle of the road. These important meetings cannot wait till they pull over to the side.
Also buses make it a point that they stop in such a way that no car can overtake them when they are at a bus stop. Ditto share autos.
Double parking is also rampant. especially in narrow roads.

A Chennai-native friend of mine who spends most of his time in USA described Chennai driving style as "___ You! driving." I said he is wrong, because to abuse another person shows that one is at least thinking about them. Chennai driving style is that nobody else on the road even exists.

A couple of days back, around Kottivakkam on ECR, two lanes of traffic had stopped for pedestrians. A biker came between the two lanes without even slowing down, without looking either way, or in any way taking account of the fact that the traffic had stopped, and just drove on. He just-about brushed the crossing pedestrians and didn't even look back. How can anybody be so ignorant?

^^ If he hits somebody he will certainly fall; and the crowd will thrash him first and talk later! All in the game, @Thad!

Have you guys seen a bike or auto-rikshaw "towing" another? Well, it is actually not towing but pushing from behind, by placing the rider / driver's foot on the preceding vehicle! The towed vehicle will be in front and the towing one behind! :)

It becomes all the more irritating / dangerous when they decide to do this improptu stop just before a turn thereby blocking everyone behind them (the left from Kotturpuram to MadhyaKailash is a favourite for these folks) or worse just after the turn (where they are no visible to those taking the left-turn and thus dangerous). And sometimes cars too do this, making matters worse.

And while it looks easy, it is far from that. I once thought it would be a cake-walk to tow-push a friend's bike that ran out of petrol, but found that it needs quite some practice and strong foot muscles too. And these guys can push heavier vehicles too - once when my battery died at Tidel signal and everyone around was honking (rush hour), an auto-guy cooly pushed the car with his foot while driving his auto enabling me to push-start the car (not supposed to start MPFI cars like this, but had no option in the heavy traffic).