[Sli_ce]

Originally Posted by canonguy

Last month I drove down to Mumbai from Bangalore..

Have anyone of you faced a similar scenario and what was your reaction?

I see this happening all the time. i often use the Gurgaon expressway here in Delhi NCR and while a third of my commute is extremely slow paced within bumper to bumper traffic, the last leg which is on the expressway makes me want to speed up seeing wide open roads.
Now when i speed up, i provoke reactions..for some godforsaken reason! i am not out there to race! i do not wish to race with anyone!
but the moment i start zipping it, and zipping past people who are otherwise moving at much conservative speeds, i have them trying to overtake me left and right! bah.
My reaction? i slow down, let them all overtake me, and speed up again. but all the while i try and stay behind these ego maniacs, to let them have their glory or whatever satisfaction they seek.

I agree with everyone here, its all about ego. and i think its incredibly immature.

Believe it or not, I've experienced this once on a TREADMILL! where the guy on the treadmill next to me tried to match my speed at every point, and all the while kept running faster than me, occasionally giving me a stare as if to prove "hey look, i can run faster than you".

[Abes]

When we were studying for engineering, one of our friends had a tata seirra similar to one owned by our college director. He was suspended from classes for overtaking the director.

Some years back, while I was doing good speeds in an uphill winding road on my 'nimble' M800, overtook a contessa, he started to speed up and sticking to my tail, trying to overtake. He was not able to overtake me because of the turns and vehicles on the opposite directions. After a while, I had to stop my car on the side (after we reached the plains) just to let him get off my tail.

Yea, a person with ego problem do get offended when someone overtakes him, especially in an "inferior" car.

[addyhemmige]

EGOs while driving can result in some disastrous consequences. I have had my share of battles with morons. I usually give way when a car which is going faster than me approaches me. But, I do get pissed off if they try to cut ahead of me when there is no space or in traffic. I tend to block their moves, but I do let them go after I get some space.

This happened some 4-5 years back. A few of my friends had gone to a dhaba on NH48 some 30kms from Hassan. It was pretty late by the time everyone had finished. I was on my bike and had left early. The next morning, I received that the other guys had suffered a horrific accident. There were 2 cars, a zen and omni. Just because the Zen had overtaken the Omni, the omni guys got charged up and overtook the Zen at 120kmph and failed to negotiate a corner. They crashed into a milestone and Omni flew off the road onto a ditch. Luckily, there were no fatalities but all the occupants suffered serious injuries.

[sachinj12]

Originally Posted by Abes

When we were studying for engineering, one of our friends had a tata seirra similar to one owned by our college director. He was suspended from classes for overtaking the director.

Height of stupidity. Totally brainless. There is no reason as why you shouldn't over take another car if the road is free and you are comfortable with that speed.

[Latheesh]

Originally Posted by addyhemmige

I usually give way when a car which is going faster than me approaches me. But, I do get pissed off if they try to cut ahead of me when there is no space or in traffic. I tend to block their moves, but I do let them go after I get some space.

This exactly what I do. If they are following the rule and give signal, I slow down and let them pass.

[vasoo]

Ego plays a big role here as it is in the typical road rage cases. Some people seems to perceive being overtaken by other vehicles as a "failure and tries to prove that he will "win"!

I had some interesting incidents like this when I was driving down from Kollur a couple of weeks back. There was an Alto who was apparently going at about 80-90 and I overtook it, without honking or flashing, in a fairly straight and clean road. Within a couple of minutes those guys came behind us started honking and flashing, even though I was on the left lane. I slowed down and allowed them to pass. The guys in that car was laughing and poking fun pointing at my car I just bowed to them! Similar experience with a couple of Jeeps also in the ghat roads near Kollur. Surprisingly bus guys were extremely decent and was ready to move out of the way and almost stop to allow us to pass them on narrow single lane roads.

[vasoo]

Originally Posted by Abes

When we were studying for engineering, one of our friends had a tata seirra similar to one owned by our college director. He was suspended from classes for overtaking the director.

....

There are also cases where promotions and salary hikes has been affected for people who bought "more expensive" cars than their bosses.

[aargee]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

This is a nice practice.
If there is another friendly car on a highway, it is nice to keep pace with each other and doing this kind of thing - passing him for a bit and then allowing him to pass and so on - keeps the drive entertaining and enjoyable - also heightens one's alertness on a sometimes boring straight highway drive.
Plus one might end up adding to one's circle of acquaintances with such a highway pace keeping partner when one pulls over at some rest stop!

Very very true, but only matured people can take this in good spirit. A close friend of mine had this good experience, but in US. He was able to form a group of 6 people, totally strangers, along with him for several hundred miles & all 6 of them were non Indians.

[Gansan]

As one who maintains a steady 75 - 85 KPH in the middle lane on the highways, I get overtaken fairly regularly. Mostly by bigger cars, some times by smaller ones and sometimes even by bikes. Frankly, I couldn't care less! If I had wanted to race, I would have bought a bigger,more powerful car in the first place and would not be taking my wife and kid along! Junior will become livid and snap at me sometimes, though!

[addyhemmige]

Originally Posted by vasoo

....Surprisingly bus guys were extremely decent and was ready to move out of the way and almost stop to allow us to pass them on narrow single lane roads.

, Most of the time, I have encountered decent bus drivers (Private & Govt) in the ghats. They give way even if you are driving a puny car ('Puny' compared to the size of the bus).

But, the worst thing is the competition in buses. I have observed this in Bangalore with the BMTC buses. Once on route 96, another bus going on the same route overtook the bus I was traveling in. Our bus driver was so pissed off and started driving pretty rashly and almost ran over a two wheeler in his quest to overtake the other bus. He did overtake the other bus a few minutes later and blocked him at the next stop for a couple of minutes, in the process blocking the whole road.

[Jyodi Backster]

There's no point blocking any one who's faster that you.
If you try to keep up with him, It'll only increase your blood pressure.

There's actually an advantage of letting the 'pushy' drivers overtake you.
they'll clear all the slow moving traffic to the sides and you can enjoy the 'free' ride.
It'll save you a lot of honking, flashing lights and gear changes.

[FanaticOnWheels]

Maturity sure doesn't come for free. If our driving is unaffected by others on the road, we're mature, else we aren't. It's something as simple as that, yet so complex.

[MX6]

Originally Posted by aargee

Hey MX6, so you kinda let your cool grow warm this time huh??

Well, He almost had me off the cliff there. Such a reckless driver needed to be reprimanded.
I saw him wedged between two buses and my way was clear so I surged ahead.
When he tried acting smart again and started flashing the lights to intimidate me, I thought let me hold him a while and let him go ahead.

I let him go ahead finding a safe spot, but he tries going side by side and tries frighten me with threatening facial expressions.

So I try to leave him behind and find a police vehicle. Had the moron not got off my tail, I'd have stopped the police and got him and the other 4 goons thrashed.

I let him go. He was the one who came back repeatedly trying to even out. Rightly and deservedly, I guess it was his car lying upside down, 40 kms down the road.

Nothing was done from my side on purpose. In an one off situation, you have to give back too. Like when a taxi driver tried kidnapping me and my parents in 1999 near Haridwar, I had to shift gears from my normally cool stance. Again a cop turns up at the unexpected hour seeing which one of the taxi guy flees, other is thrashed by the cop and taken to the police station. The vehicle apparently was not having correct papers as well.

I'm flattered to read the rest of your story and keeping me as inspiration for remaining cool. Continue the good work. I didn't let this one off incident upset me further. stopped for cane juice in 10 mins and proceeded as cool as a cucumber yet again. 40 kms down the road when I saw the swift upside down, I thanked god for not letting me interfere with his work!

Rest 600 kms of drive over various ghats was excellent.

[Bhargava_sr]

Hey Canonguy thanks for your excellent decision, I have seen many instances where when I overtake a car doing decent 100kmph, immediately or after some time they start a street racing as we we have done a Sin by overtaking them, it mostly happended for me in Bangalore-Krishnagiri Highway, well sometimes I never use to allow them to overtake me and later I relaized no games on streets and no games with reckless drivers, now I dont react and just giv them the way.
These nasty games leads to disasters and increasing the number of accidents and deaths on road.

[pypkmsrikanth]

I always make it a point not to join in any race on the highway. Though I drive a Wagon R am comfortable driving around 90 / 100 kmph which I try to maintain at most of times. Also I use a lot of anticipation while driving so prefer to take the foot of my accelerator if I feel I would not be able to overtake the vehicle ahead of me due to what ever reasons. That way I could maintain the momentum so that I could reach back to my 90 / 100 kmph without losing much time.

Some times I come across instances where people get offended that I manage to overtake bigger cars easily it is always my habit not to look at the cars that you overtake or the cars that overtake instead concentrate on the mirrors to ensure decent clearance is maintained between vehicles to prevent unnecessary incidents. Like the other day when I was coming back from Trichy a Qualis, with a party flag, which was hell bent on cutting me across every time it overtook me just because I managed to find a way through traffic better than him.

Once I was part of a high speed convoy all the way from Vellore - Poonamallee containing an Innova, Honda City & myself with each other leading the convoy at times depending on how the convoy overtook the traffic in front and at all times the 3 vehicles ensured that the one who lost momentum did not hold up the vehicle coming behind. Neither did we attempt any rash overtaking over the other to prove a point. Was a welcome break for me while I was feeling too tired after a very long day's work in Bangalore.