Moving All Posts to udayms.wordpress.com

This blog would be deleted soon. I am moving all posts to udayms.wordpress.com

Reason: I am finding it difficult to maintain multiple blogs.

Repeating Accidents in Ashok Nagar 11th Ave.

If accidents repeats in the same area, we term it as an accident prone area. It is time the traffic authorities declare the turning from Ashok Pillar to 11th Ave. as an accident prone area.

You might have read our previous post on a scuffle between the MTC bus drivers at 11th Ave. See these pictures. The same scene was repeated on Saturday (01st September 2007), but this time it was a car vs. MTC bus.

 

We reached the spot minutes after the accident took place, so we are not in a position to explain on how it happened. We just want to highlight some basic issues here.  The bus was stopped almost at the center of the road as evident in the next two photographs. The same was the case in the previous incident.

 

This bus stop is just after a turn and a signal. Authorities should think of moving it further down the road or take steps to make the vehicles stop properly.

Begging at Traffic Signals

Stopping vehicles at the Traffic Signals in Ashok Nagar is becoming a nightmare to the drivers.  Just as you stop the vehicle at the red signal, few people gets onto the road and approach the vehicles – ladies with kids, kids, beggars… the list goes on. 

 

The photo was taken at the signal near Udayam Theatre. You can see a three member team in the rear view mirror. One person is blind and the other two are accompanying him carrying a collection box. Even though there is a police outpost at this signal, these people carry on with their business. One of them claimed that police has allowed them collect money at this signal.

This practice common in Mumbai and new to Chennai can cause unnecessary traffic jam and accidents.

Road Safety and Traffic Education

There was an interesting news that caught my attention. The news  by Meera Srinivasan
 “A school of thought on road safety emerges” published in The Hindu. It talks about a workshop for teachers on the traffic safety:

At a workshop organised by the NGO (Suraksha Road Safety Society) in partnership with DaimlerChrysler India Private Limited and the Society  of Indian Automobile Manufacturers here on Tuesday, teachers from city schools were trained in aspects of road safety. They would go back and train their students in these areas.

Representatives from six schools in and around the city — Ellen Sharma Memorial School, P. S. Senior Secondary School, Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan (T. P. Road), Children’s Garden School, Sivaswami Kalalaya and Chellammal Matriculation — participated. Founder of the NGO Usha Seshasayee said the awareness campaign, targeted at about 1,000 students, was likely to benefit nearly 10,000 students owing to an overwhelming response from schools.

The workshop organisers would also hold a series of contests on road safety for Class IV children to “catch them young” and spread awareness. “A regulatory authority that monitors the issue and connects the exercises taken up by NGOs and the authorities will help,” she says.

Read the fully story in THE HINDU  (http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/01/stories/2007080159140300.htm).

Kudos to the organizers of the workshop. We were not part of the workshop and we do not know what was taught as part of the workshop. But when we consider the traffic education for Kids in Chennai, there is a basic issue:  ” What traffic education are we going to impart to the kids? ”

Let us take few basic things:

• While you are on road, walk only on the footpath. Where do we have proper footpath. The kids are forced to walk on the road.
• Use pedestrian cross (Zebra crossing) to cross the road. We do not have proper pedestrian crossing on most of the roads.
• We do not have enough sign boards. To warn the drivers.
• Drivers forget the courtesy factor while driving; even while kids are crossing the road.
• No signals for the pedestrian crossing.

Along with the workshops, we need to take some creative steps to make the roads safer for kids:

1. Identify school zones.
2. Implement clear and wide pedestrian crossing and stop lines in these school zones.
3. Put up the following sign boards in the school zones: School Zone, Speed Limit, No Overtaking in school zone, Yellow Lines, No Horn.
4. Penalty for not following traffic rules in school zone should be at least triple the penalty levied in other zones.
5. Mark Parking area/ No parking area in the school zone.
6. Local Traffic authorities meet Parents and Teachers once in a month to hear the issues. The meeting can be clubbed with the Open House or any such event. I am sure the parents would be willing to help the authorities to implement any of the road safety measures in the school zones.
7. Create traffic parks in the outskirts of city where the kids get a chance to drive the toy vehicles and learn the traffic rules.

If we do not have these things in place, then… instead of traffic education, it is better to enrol kids and parents to some Obstacle Training courses.

During the third week of June I had to wait near Jawahar Vidyalaya (Ashok Nagar) for almost 2 hours. Since there was nothing else to do, I decided to watch the traffic. It was pathetic. The following photograph summarizes the scene:

This photograph was taken from the footpath in front of the school using a mobile camera. See how the vehicles join another road through the wrong side of the road. See the other two specific issues marked in red. When the traffic police is present, they do their best to control the traffic. But unless the drivers decide to follow the traffic rules… chaos rules.

Watch this video  on Make Road Safe campaign of United Nations

…and read the book let A child dies every 3 minutes.

July 30, Monday Morning Traffic

Read this news from THE HINDU:

CHENNAI: Traffic came to a standstill on several roads in the city on Monday morning.

Motorists complained that they were stranded for over an hour from 8.30 a.m. at Kathipara junction. Vehicles moving in both directions at Guindy, Saidapet and Little Mount remained immobile. Apart from office goers, passengers who had to reach the airport too were caught in the traffic jam.

Read the complete story on THE HINDU: http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/31/stories/2007073160290500.htm

I was affected by the traffic block. If you belong to the crowd that got affected by the bad traffic… leave a comment on your experience.

Keep Distance !

Yet another day… Yet another time… Yet another photograph…

But the scene is not much different…

The photograph in this post was taken at the traffic block at Guindy near Olympia IT park.

It took almost 25 minutes to cover a distance of almost one kilometer from the HCL Technologies office to the next signal at Guindy.

That is fine if everything goes well…

But we all compete to flout some basic rules of traffic here… KEEP DISTANCE!

See how close the vehicles are stopped…

Now the question is whether distance should be maintained only with vehicle in front and back ? Most of the drivers do not find it necessary to leave space at front and back of the vehicle. Forget about the sides…

Ashok Nagar 11th Avenue – The story continues…

The traffic chaos at Ashok Nagar 11th Avenue remains the same.

In one of the previous posts you might have seen the photographs of traffic block at night. Now see some photographs of the same location from a different angle. This time, the camera is focused from the 11th Ave. on the signal towards RTO office.

The traffic signal is green for vehicles from RTO office side towards 11th Avenue.

On the left end see the two wheeler on the wrong side. The bus drivers need to attend a few lessons on how to take a turn. The Car and Van is in a hurry to reach the 100 ft. road. See the cyclist… he is definitely in danger. But he braves his way through the traffic.

The traffic signal is not visible to those waiting on the 11th Ave. to proceed towards RTO office/100 ft. road.

There is a right turn for those driving from the 100 ft. road. But the green bus, the van, and the cars could cause a traffic block that could last for an hour.

Which lane should I drive?

While driving, we try to follow some basic rules. If we need to turn left, we move to the left lane or try to occupy the left most area on the road at least 50 meters before the turn. See the graphical representation of a road with lanes.

Even if lanes are not drawn on the road, it is easy to follow an imaginary lane.

Now see the photograph. All the lanes are occupied by MTC and private buses.
There is a left turn and right turn. The buses that occupy the left and right lanes are long distance MTC buses that need not take any turn. Imagine how it would be to drive a motorcycle or a car in this traffic.

 Photograph taken in 100 ft. road near Olympia Tech Park (seen in the background)

Riding on a Median – The MTC way

This incident took place few months ago. 
Venue: Near Vadapalani Bus Depot and Doshi Garden shopping Mall.

Time: Around 05 PM
Atmosphere: Traffic flow was normal. Slight drizzle and wind.  

Now to the story… 

Vadapalani-Kodambakkam road is considered to be a heavy traffic route. Traffic Police has put in a lot of effort to decongest the roads at Vadapalani. Especially near the Bus Depot. But we have some expert drivers who can create traffic blocks even in a smooth flowing traffic.

Even though there is a Bus Depot, all bus drivers (and most of the commuters) like to alight in front of Doshi Gardens. Usually the traffic flow is not interrupted by this practice. But on this day, a biker lost his control on the bike and fell down on the right side of the bus causing the traffic towards Porur to stop for a few seconds.

Then came our Hero – the driver of another MTC bus. He decided to overtake the vehicles and forgot that there is a median on the road.

This simple mistake from the driver caused a traffic jam which took almost 20 minutes (during the peak hour) for the police men to clear.

Spot The Driver

While the government is busy implementing seat belts for Cars and helmets for two wheelers, everyone forget about the security of the passengers in this mighty three wheeler (sometimes four wheeler) – the “Share Auto”.

A picture taken in Guindy.