COMMENTS

WHY are they more disciplined? WHY do they behave better than Indian bikers? Because the penalty for not driving courteously and in a more disciplined way are too high. People in Dallas are not better human beings.

It's not just fear of penalties that drive them to show better road manners. With 100% literacy, they understand that it's better for all to allow right of way on the streets, apart from understanding driving techinques & safety far better. In short, they are a far more civilized society than ours.

With almost 100% of the drivers in India being illiterates (barring a small minority that is educated), it is clearly expecting too much to make things work by fear of penalties alone. The educated lot of drivers, being vastly outnumbered on the streets, also tend to break rules since they would otherwise lose the battle amidst the chaos. Traffic cops cannot be stationed at every intersection all the time to catch violators - several such "drives" have been conducted, all leading to nowhere since to sustain such a high degree of supervision would require an extremely huge police force, which is not feasible.

I strongly feel that the better the public transport, the better the city becomes. I'm merely suggesting that banning a class of vehicles from the roads will not solve a problem, but only cover up the symptoms and hide a larger set of underlying problems.

These underlying problems that we have will take generations, if not eons to change - we are talking about a whole nation here, if not a city. This is why most other developing country cities have chosen to ban the more maoeverable vehicles from city streets since they, being more nimble, will end up squeezing past other vehicles & criss-crossing everywhere, endangering safety on the streets.

Unrest amongst public for such reasons simply cannot be tolerated. If we do tolerate it, then we're encouraging people to break the law.

True, but again, we are a "lame duck" democracy - & politicians have consistently yielded to people's demands, even when they break the law. Apart from traffic chaos, there is also the example of building violations, that are now being condoned in most cities, & such violations are being "regularized" as a norm.

Bikers and car drivers are motivated to use their own vehicles because of the convenience. As we see the public transportation getting better in the city, we see people switching to buses and trains. We're already starting to see that. In a similar way, you need to give people enough of an incentive to follow rules.

It is true that a section of citizens in bangalore have got exasparated with the chaotic traffic conditions & hence have shifted over to bus services since there isn't any other choice. The worldwide experience has been that even when public transport is good, people will still try to use their private vehicles due to much higher degree of convenience. Thus, there have to be sufficient deterrents pushed into place, such as high parking costs, expensive fuel, vehicle taxes, congestion or cordon pricing, longer travel time, etc. to get them on to public transport.

I'll shortly be writing an article about a case study where a small and constrained police force (like in Bangalore) brought down crime levels drastically with a few simple measures.

I look forward to reading this - but I think this is likely to have happened in a city or town outside India !

• thumb_up 32 Likes
• · login or register to post comments

 I think this is debatable. All the car owners think the bikers as the offenders, whereas bikers think that because of so many cars. Think of Bangalore 10 years or before. I agree that population density was less. But, still places were easily commutable. Now, with increased purchasing power due to high paying jobs, car population is growing faster than the city population.

I still drive 2 wheeler and it is so comfortable especially for nearby places and in highly crowded places. Going to a shop on Avenue road or Balepet or Chickpet is only possible by 2 wheelers or rickshaws. If you see cars in DVG road, they will be occupying both the direction lanes and nobody questions them.

Bangalore roads as well as houses were designed for 2 wheelers on which cars are being run and hence we have so much of congestion and parking problems.

 I feel risky driving 2 wheeler due to reckless car drivers who may rub my shoulders. Running cost, maintenance cost is dam cheaper. We should consider the other part of the society too who cannot afford to have cars due to lack of parking space at home.Congestion level will increase further if any such action is taken. 

In terms of burning fossil fuel also, bikes are lot less compared to cars with average of 45-50 kpl  with good bikes giving as high as 65-70kpl compared to car which best of the best cars can give hardly 18-19.

Why not congestion charges to everyone on important roads. No one wants to take the call since they want to drive on these roads and cannot take public transport.

Why not everyone give up petrol and diesel cars and take up electric cars? Why not people give up their SUVs and Large cars and take up small cars? Nobody rings the bell of the richer class of people.

• thumb_up 26 Likes
• · login or register to post comments

Vasanth,

See the reasons cited below for developing the ban on motorcycles for Guangzhou (quoted from the report). Unless some study is conducted, we cannot conclude if the large presence of two-wheelers in bangalore are beneficial or not. This report was posted only as an example about how such changes can be brought about, if there is a will. I had visited Guangzhou in 1997, 2004 & 2009 & it certainly has improved greatly from what was a chaotic city, much like ours is now - the shift from 2-wheelers to public transport (viz. Metro, Bus & now BRT) has been highly successful.

Faced with very rapid increases in the motorcycle vehicle fleet, the city perceived a number of problems associated with motorcycles.

Noise pollution: noise monitoring found that noise could run up to as high as 80.4 db when a motorcycle passed, and as high as 90 to 100 decibels when the motorcycle was started. This was 31 db higher than a car. This far exceeded the state’s regional environmental noise standards of 55 decibels, and the road traffic environment noise standards of 70 decibels.

Air pollution: According to a survey of the city environmental protection department, each new motorcycle discharged 0.1%～0.2% carbon monoxide and 100~2100 parts per million hydrocarbon when it was idling. Investigation showed that motorcycles accounted for 15.2% of carbon monoxide air pollution, and as high as 30.4% of hydrocarbon pollutants, more than the sum of goods vehicles and buses.

Traffic crashes and fatalities: motorcycles had become the number one killers in accidents in Guangzhou. In the first half of 2003 there were a total of 3,044 motorcycle crashes in the city, with 363 people killed, an average of 2 deaths per day. The number of deaths involving motorcycles accounted for 43.61% of all traffic deaths.

Illegal motorcycle taxi operation: restrictions on motorcycle taxis were repeatedly unable to be implemented, which not only disrupted the regular passenger transport (taking demand away from buses and regular taxis), but also raised many potential safety and security problems.

Impact on traffic order: Motorcycle running order was perceived by the traffic police as chaotic, with traffic infringements becoming more frequent and serious. These included lack of registration and documents, driving without a license, not wearing safety helmets, and so on. This was perceived by the traffic police as having a negative impact on the ‘normal traffic order’.

Impact on the image of Guangzhou: There was a perception amongst policy‐makers that cities with more intensive use of motorcycles were less modern. Hence there was a perception that motorcycles were adversely affecting the image of Guangzhou as an international metropolis.

Theft and security: According to official statistics, from January to October 2003, 9,320 motorcycle snatch thefts happened in the city, accounting for 47.1% of the total number of snatch cases. This amounts to 31 cases of snatch thefts per day. (A motorcycle snatch theft typically involves a motorcycle approaching a pedestrian from behind or from the side, with a pillion passenger grabbing a bag or handheld valuables before the motorcycle accelerates away).

Reasons for banning motorcycles that were not commonly cited:
One of the major negative impacts of motorcycles, which interestingly was not cited as one of the justifications behind the ban on motorcycles, was the impact they had in the narrow confines of Guangzhou’s extensive narrow alleyways. Bulky, noisy, aggressive and often polluting motorcycles made these already‐congested alleyways unpleasant and unsafe.

Motorcycles in the many hundreds of kilometers of narrow alleyways throughout Guangzhou had a major detrimental impact on the quality of the pedestrian environment, with their noise, speed, space requirements, emissions, and security threats. These pedestrian environments are also vital public spaces of the city. This negative impact is difficult to quantify, but the improvement in walking conditions throughout the city after the motorcycle ban were so great that this pedestrian space improvement is probably the main benefit of the policy.

In addition, motorcycle taxis tended to congregate at bus stops and metro station exits, acting as feeders for the public transport system (see photos). This provided a useful service, but with strong negative side‐effects on the pedestrian environment. The motorcycle taxi drivers tended to park and to drive on walkways, in areas around bus stops that were already often congested with pedestrians, vendors, people waiting for buses, and so on.

• thumb_up 34 Likes
• · login or register to post comments

 Banning Motorcylces in Bangalore would be huge. Motorcylce adoption by the public is quite high in Bangalore unlike many other bigger cities in the world.  There will be huge amount of protests. Once the city roads become smoother to drive on, and the average speed picks up, riding 2 wheelers will become unsafe and that is the greatest deterrent for anyone. In Europe, I see 2 wheelers in some cities, but they are so few in number.  Also, I think banning them altogether is not a great idea for the environment unless there is a fantastic seamless public transport to go from anywhere to anywhere like maybe London or Hong Kong Metro systems.  

• thumb_up 24 Likes
• · login or register to post comments

If I want to ride a bike, or a small car, or a big car anywhere in the city, why should I be stopped? Why should my freedom be restricted because of my choice of vehicle? 

Though in India such a suggestion might seem to harshly curtail one's freedom (since we have gotten used to practicisng whatever we wish & whenever we feel like it without caring much for other users), unfortunately, this choice of widespread use of individual low-cost motor-bikes & autos leaves all other commuters at a disadvantage, particularly the public transport users & bicycle users, who pollute the least & do not obstruct others on the streets as much.

Cars are more polluting if they carry single riders, but they are safer & do not obstruct or pose as much risk on the streets as do mobikes & autos. Thus, public transport can operate well on roads even with cars operating on the same streets, but if there are highly manoeverable vehicles such as mobikes & autos, the performance of public transport deteriorates much more severely. This is one of the main reasons why such modes of transport have been discouraged in most cities abroad, but our authorities are yet to understand this aspect, let alone take any action.

Why do we see so many bikers riding carelessly, jumping signals, speeding, weaving through traffic, and getting on everyone's nerves? Because we let them do it. Because the police lets them do it. And they get away with it. They cross the white line in a two way street signal, and block oncoming traffic, and we see a policeman standing guard trying in vain to push them back into their lanes. Why do they do it? Because they can, and we let them, and we let them get away with it.

If proper enforcement is in place, where atleast 10% of the offenders are caught, penalized, have licences revoked, vehicles seized, etc., then within weeks you will see people behaving better on the roads.

Though this may be partly true, there is more to this than just "letting them do it". For example, can anyone confine millions of tiny, small insects within a small portion on a plot of land ? Or can one confine millions of tiny fish to one small portion of a pool ? Enforcement of dicipline with highly manoeverable vehicles on streets is far more difficult than to streamline conventional four-wheeler traffic.

When we have some 1.7 million 2-wheelers on our roads, the only positive way the situation can be handled is to either create much more road space or cut down the number of 2-wheelers drastically & push people on to public transport. There are no options but to cut down the number of two-wheeler & three-wheeler traffic in the future, though presently, this might sound unrealistic or optimistic.

• thumb_up 42 Likes
• · login or register to post comments