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Lacking Traffic Discipline in Bangalore

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Written By rvas - 13 July, 2007

Traffic Bangalore BTRAC

Bangalore means Traffic - Wherever we see, we see jams, accidents, fights between drivers and much more unpredictable incidents. What is preventing Bangalore from having a clean, disciplined traffic. Few of the issues I found the difference between foreign countries and India in General and Bangalore in Particular are:

1. People are not afraid of Law and the Traffic Cops.

2. Fines in India is very cheap and often all the traffic police can be bribed to getaway from the fine. Even if the fines are increased, since the cops can be bribed, people can getaway from accidents and traffic violations.

3. Lack of lane discipline and uniform speed - We can see people, even an educated IT guy also not following any lane discipline. People manoveur their vehicles all over the road in a zig zag manner and with many S cuttings and sometimes with unpredictable 'U' turns, especially autos.

4. Overloaded trucks moving slowly and blocking the traffic.

5. Trucks and other vehicles stopping on the road side.

6. Traffic police not being effective - We can see traffic police simply sitting in some circle on a bike or on the side of the road without taking any action on the offenders - Instead traffic police should be patroling the road and catch hold of offenders and put huge fine irrespective of he being minister or his son or any cadre.

7. During accidents, the opposite party should simply take the Insurance Number and get it reimbursed from the insurance - Only problem in India is these Insurance companies cheat a lot during claims - This has to be regulated strictly by Government. During accidents, lot of local people make a big scene and try to make profit out of it.

8. We also need long running flyovers with local traffic not intersecting with it with Entry and Exit systems atleast on major roads like ring road. What Karnataka Government is doing is, it is just constructing small flyovers to just cross the signals, but, as soon as we cross the signal, again we are trapped. If we have long running flyovers like that of City Market (Sirsi Circle) flyover, it can ease the flow of traffic. Government of Karnataka did a good thing in that and didn't followed the same thing in other places.

Do we need B-TRAC or any other sophisticated system when we don't have our basics right. If we are on track with the basic discipline, then the advancements in technology may solve our problem. Since we are not at all on track with the basics of traffic, B-TRAC or 'N' number of small flyovers and underpasses will not solve our problem.

Please add on to this thread. Although these discussions are just for our mental comfortness and nothing will come to reality in India.

 

COMMENTS

traffic

raauf - 24 April, 2008 - 11:12

I have been to many countries, but recently i visited japan and i was really surprised to see the peoples were very co-operative towards each other. they allow other cars to pass any intersection,where as we are all in hurry we whenever give way or let others to pass until we pass.... Second thing is on every intersection there is a centre median on four roads ,so vehicles will stop and let others pass and they turn to their cross along the centre median We will have to have patience on roads then we can see that we re accident free city...

These

shas3n - 24 April, 2008 - 12:04

I think raauf is referring to one of these.. Not sure. Just guessing. [flickr-photo:id=2301425798,size=m] -Shastri

Box junctions

shas3n - 24 April, 2008 - 12:46

Right turn at intersections (in countries driving on left) is a tricky issue. Japan's way above seems pretty intuitive.

UK uses the system shown below.

(From: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070332) The rule itself reads : Box junctions. These have criss-cross yellow lines painted on the road (see 'Road markings'). You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. However, you may enter the box and wait when you want to turn right, and are only stopped from doing so by oncoming traffic, or by other vehicles waiting to turn right. At signalled roundabouts you MUST NOT enter the box unless you can cross over it completely without stopping.

Basically the vehicles turning to right wait in the central boxed zone to let other vehicles pass before they proceed themselves.

But surely not a good idea for high traffic junctions.

Just mentioning it here to have the information handy and extensive on Praja.

-Shastri

similar to left turn in USA?

Mithun - 24 April, 2008 - 17:01

Is the concept same as what is followed to turn left in USA? USA drives on right side of the road. At intersection or traffic signal, the car intending to take left will wait till all incoming traffic from opposite direction are cleared. USA does not have any box painted as such on the road.

we have similar box jn too!

blrsri - 25 April, 2008 - 01:01

There are a few implementations of the box junctions in blr too..mostly around the MG road..vidhana soudha area..but no one has any clue how to use it..

The only thing that I was aware of was it was  a no stopping zone..but didnt know all this about it! 

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