[Ragavsr]

Originally Posted by hajaar

I have been rear-ended twice. Both minor. And both times the cops on the scene wanted to know if I wanted to file a case or settle it amicably.

I should have made things a bit more clear.

File a case with Chennai cops is not necessarily an FIR. Even after taking the vehicles in question to the police station, they gave us a hand written note with the inspector 's seal on it.

Probably the owner of the cab was well connected, the inspector persuaded everyone against not filing a Fir. Looking back, this was in the year 2010. I cross a RTO office daily and I come across vehicles with minor damage, say bumpers lined up for RTO inspection. Hope things have changed for the better.

As with thongs in this country, your mileage may vary.

[locusjag]

I was riding my RE Electra to work recently through Chemmenchery when I saw a Yamaha Fazer being ridden by a gruff-looking man very slowly by the side of the road. He was texting, as I could make out by his hung head and upheld left-forearm. A Tata Nexon overtook me and was about to pass this SMS-ing man, when he moved suddenly onto the Nexon's path. The Nexon driver honked once gently to warn him and proceeded to speed on.

I witnessed full-on roadrage from the at-fault biker next; he honked and tailed him and threw a lot of abuses ("you're in my area, how dare you?"). Inexplicably, the Nexon driver (a young IT pro) rolled down his window and listened patiently to him, while all of us were still driving at 50 Kmph.

I did my part to break up the party by honking at them from behind.

It's moments like these that make me want to record all of my motorcycle and car commutes. Mistakes were made by the motorcycle (SMS-ing, careless riding, roadrage) and by the car-wallah (hearing out the raging guy). Tut tut!

[Kaumad]

The incompetence of Chennai Traffic police seems to be increasing by the day!
As it is, it annoys me no end when these morons start controlling signal lights "manually" with that switch they have. They have absolutely no sense of elapsed time.

Now, a new level of incompetence at the SRP Tools junction on OMR!
This small stretch of service lane right in front of Holiday Inn seems to be eternally in chaos inspite of a police booth located in the service lane!
Reason - Stupid 2W riders coming from Perungudi, who want to ride in the wrong direction to reach LB Road and into oncoming traffic. The best part is traffic cops do nothing to stop them. I have even seen constables who negotiate through the jam, just to cross the road. They are least bothered to smoothen the traffic flow !

[Prodigy07]

Travel time from Tambaram to Ramapuram at 3:30pm on a weekday - 40 mins

Reason - TN Bandh

[Shanksta]

Today was a horrible experience driving to Defexpo 2018 in Thiruvidandhai. What was anticipated to be a 1 hour drive of 30kms due to traffic, took me 4 hours.

We left from my relatives house at Thiruvanmiyur at 8:45AM and reached the expo venue at 12:30PM.

We were travelling as a group of 5 cars. I was ahead of the others by about 1.5kms along with another car and we went till VGP golden beach relatively fast in about 30 minutes. From there till Sholinganallur link road took 45 minutes. As I was about to pass the junction towards Kanathur toll the cops suddenly barricaded ECR claiming a 5km long gridlock, whereas Google showed it blue all the way till Kovalam junction.

We were forced to turn right towards OMR and we moved relatively fast in 20 minutes till Decathlon,Padur when we hit a really bad gridlock. The 1.5kms from there till the left turn into Kelambakkam-Kovalam road took 1 hour . Whether it was luck or not I don't know but my relative had found an alternate left(300 mts before Kovalam road), a small road leading into Kelambakkam-Kovalam road. No other car was taking it but we took a chance and lucked out. Apparently the cops did not allow any vehicle to turn left into Kovalam road and were forcing everyone to move straight till Mahabalipuram and drive in the other direction to the venue.

In a matter of 5 minutes we reach ECR again and turned right towards Mahabalipuram. Having driven in such heavy traffic we lucked out seeing the half hour air demonstration from the car while stuck in the jam. It took us another 1 hour to take a right into the designated parking zone for LMV.

After we took the right and went 200 mts we were told that parking is full and my relative got out asked the cop to block the vehicle coming into that road and requested the 10+ cars behind us to reverse. After all this hoopla we went back towards ECR and thought of going till Mahabalipuram. But we drove straight into another gruelling jam. It took us a half hour to move 200mts and we decided to take a U-turn and head back to a restaurant near Panaiyur for lunch.

Took 30 minutes to reach Panaiyur, had lunch and came back home at 3:30pm mostly disappointed at not being able to go inside to have a look. The soaring heat (real feel of 40°C ) did not help matters. We even contemplated parking a good 1-2 kms away after taking the U-turn to walk back to expo but ultimately felt it was not worth it in the chaos and heat.

On our return I saw a traffic jam of approximately 6-7km long towards Mahabalipuram. While I salute the cops for having helped us in the soaring heat they were responsible for most of the gridlock.

It was as if the whole of Chennai had turned up to see the expo. Cars, motorcycles everywhere, I have witnessed this type of traffic jam only once before in 2015 when I was stuck driving for 5 hours due to the floods.

While this happened to us my relatives in the other 3 cars were allowed to pass straight onto ECR and they reached 40 minutes before us albeit still stuck in the jam. The family in the other car tagging along with us got frustrated after a point and took a U-turn on OMR and went back home.

All this despite me driving in the extreme left following SUVs that were one half on the road and one half off the road. Reckon I saved almost another 35-40minutes doing that.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Shanksta

... It was as if the whole of Chennai had turned up to see the [Def]expo. ....

That explains why I found it so easy to get to and from Photography expo at Chennai Trade Centre!

But seriously: sorry that your day out turned into such a grind.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by Shanksta

Today was a horrible experience driving to Defexpo 2018 in Thiruvidandhai. What was anticipated to be a 1 hour drive of 30kms due to traffic, took me 4 hours.
.

I hate to say it but I knew this would happen. I stayed home. ECR is a nightmare enough as it is...

OT: been following your dashcam clips and it's apparent you live in Nanganallur. I haunt that place so much since we have lots of family there.

Very OT: Tniruvidanthai has that famous temple, the Nithya Kalyana Perumal temple. Hawkers selling flowers created an urban divine legend that, as the name suggests ("Kalyana"), unwed people who buy a floral garland there and pray there would get married in no time. Of course, you can see a lot of unmarried people doing the rounds of the temple. Meanwhile, "Nithya Kalyana" really means that the deity there is always happy. Plain and simple, while the revenue stream of the garland makers of Tniruvidanthai is also plain and simple.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by locusjag

... Very OT: Tniruvidanthai has that famous temple, the Nithya Kalyana Perumal temple. Hawkers selling flowers created an urban divine legend that, as the name suggests ("Kalyana"), unwed people who buy a floral garland there and pray there would get married in no time. Of course, you can see a lot of unmarried people doing the rounds of the temple.

Very Very OT: It sounds like a great place for unmarried people to meet unmarried people!

[hserus]

There actually is a legend that Vishnu in his Varaha form married 360 daughters of a local Rishi, all of whom merged together into the goddess of this temple.

[Prodigy07]

New "Raised Pavement Markers" have been fixed on all junctions between Chromepet and Tambaram.
Not sure why the road contractor hasn't fixed them properly.

Ideally, they should have been placed in such a way that there should be no jolt inside your vehicle when you commute over them.

But, the way these markers have been fixed is that, you feel that the entire dashboard is going to fall when you travel over them at speeds 15-30km/hr.

[jpcoolguy]

Originally Posted by Kaumad

The incompetence of Chennai Traffic police seems to be increasing by the day!
As it is, it annoys me no end when these morons start controlling signal lights "manually" with that switch they have. They have absolutely no sense of elapsed time.

True that. I experience this "manual" switch control of signal lights mainly in the Eechankadu junction (junction of 200 ft Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam road and Medavakkam Main road) where the cops would allow the traffic flow on one side till the last heavy vehicle (buses, trucks) has passed. Apparently, there will be a never ending stream of these vehicles and frustrated part is that they will wait even if they see a bus/truck almost half a KM from the signal.

One more junction is that of Shollinganallur signal where this same "manual" switch control is in place.

[locusjag]

Had a weird experience today. Was chugging along to office on my RE Electra when I spotted one guy in the Nookampalayam link road asking for a lift till Chemmenchery on OMR. So I took him on as a pillion.

As we moved on, he mumbled something in Tamil+Telugu about a poor farmer who doesn't have money to commute anywhere. I was comprehending what he'd said when he asked me to stop. There was an old and fragile man with a towel on his head who was walking on the middle of the road right beside the median. Soon, the fellow behind called out to him and we were a trio before I knew what had happened. I was horrified; the third fragile-looking pillion rider was seated right on the edge of the rear part of the seat.

Sentiments got the better of me (a poor old farmer and a blue-collared worker needed a lift!) and I transported them for 1.5 Km till OMR where they voluntarily dropped off since "the police would trouble us for riding in triples".

Moreover, the farmer lost the towel which was on his head en route and they had said something to me about it apparently, but I hadn't heard nor understood what they'd said. But no other damage was done.

[Safety is Param]

Hello Friends! This query is not for the road, but rail.

The 12028 Shatabdi Express, that departed Bangalore at 6 am today, and has a scheduled journey time of 5 hrs. to Chennai, reached a whopping 10 hrs. 33 mins. late (reached at 21.33 hrs).

The return train 12027, scheduled to depart at 17.30 hrs., has now been rescheduled to depart at 22.30 hrs.

I need to travel from Bangalore to Chennai tomorrow morning in the same train.

Is there any maintenance in progress on this section? Today's train took 10 hrs to cover the last 146 kms., so definitely some section is under maintenance given that there are no news of an accident.

There seems to be many EMUs cancelled today and tomorrow in Chennai suburban area, and if there indeed is a maintenance, then tomorrow it should be at its peak, which in turn means that there would be delays tomorrow as well.

Anyone has any information on this? If there is indeed a delay expected tomorrow, then I may as well travel by road.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Warwithwheels]

Originally Posted by Safety is Param

Anyone has any information on this? If there is indeed a delay expected tomorrow, then I may as well travel by road.

Hope this helps!

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/...le23764534.ece

[Safety is Param]

Originally Posted by Warwithwheels

Hope this helps!

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/...le23764534.ece

Thanks, looks like a planned maintenance for the greater good.

From the article, it seems the trains are expected to be delayed tomorrow as well due to manual signaling.

The only confusion is, why did the train of May 4 reach only 30 mins late? The only answer seems - it was a weekday, so planned impact was minimum.