I dont know whether its me, or whoever who shifted from NCR to Chennai can comment, I find people in Chennai roads are more arrogant and never follow rules. Yesterday being sunday i went for a ride to Marina beach, right from Arcot road till the Marina beach road i find hell lotsa violaters everywhere..
You cant move fast in right lane either an Auto or a two wheeler will block you in front and moves leisurly at 20 km/h speed and it will be nightmare to move in left lane cos only god knows when the vehicle in front stops all of a sudden.
Bus drivers stops the buses right on the middle of road blocking both left and right lane.
And they cut from left most lane and go towards right in Junctions. (This case is applicable in NCR too)
You can expect vehicles to go either ahead/towards you, but here in chennai they cross over you very unexpectedly.
I find the following things are the reasons for chennai's ill-fated on road experience.
#1. LOTSA two wheelers!!!. And, unlike NCR were two wheeler keep left lane, here they will be all around. left/right/head on/crosses. You need to have 5 pair of eyes to cope up with them.
#2. No proper market area, shops will be there all over the road and people will stop their vehicles right in front of the shops. Blocks (permanently) part of the left lane. Were as in NCR, there will be dedicated zones for market and only there we have to be bit cautious.
#3. Narrow roads, most of the main areas roads are very narrow (Rest of the wider roads are now blocked by Metro constructions
#4. Lane discipline is something which is a nightmare here, Even if you wishes to do so, you CAN'T!!!..
#5. No one stops their vehicles before stop-line in signals, They will stop 2 feet ahead of it.. And when there is a signal with count down timer, people will start honking when the count down timer reaches single digit and they move on when it is at 5.
They dont stop even when the signals turns from Green to Red, until the traffic from Green zone abruptly stops them. Best example, Lakshman Sruthi signal at 100 feet road.
#6. One can see even very narrow roads having divider here, its because of the attitude of people where they drive like ONE WAY if there is no divider.
#7. Signals are placed very low (in height) and in some places you have to play hide and seek to find the signal. (esp in t.Nagar) Once when i crossed a junction, a traffic cop stopped me saying that i jumped a signal, i was looking around in search of signal and the cop laugh out to the core and pointed me the signal which was kept behind the tree and lits up the leaves in the tree.
#8. X junctions. Yes i mean it vehicles have to pass diagnally at those intersections
. Your car's side will be decorated with bunch of lines if you were new to this type of junctions. (one of the ex: Kaasi theatre junction, atleast the road is wide here).
I have spent 3 years in NCR (Noida) and relocated to chennai after that, My roots are from Tamilnadu so i'am not anything against the region here. Im just penning down my on road experience between these places.
I do accepts NCR had its advantage of having planned architecture and Wider roads. but still here in the famous OMR i can see people jumping the divider while on crossing the road. Two wheeler zip past the opposite directions, and almost all the violations which i mentioned above are taking place here.
I think people's attitude is matter here.