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.

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Changing the Lane or Moving other vehicles out of Lane – the MTC way

Have you ever watched any TV Programs on New York Police Department training on how to chase and move a  car to the side of the road.  If you are driving through Chennai roads, you might be lucky to witness some drivers who seem to have undergone such training.

See these pictures taken today (30 July 2007) morning between 09 and 10 am.  The traffic was at its peak. It took almost one hour and 35 minutes to cover 6 kms.

See how this MTC driver moves to left WITHOUT any indication. The car from which these photos were taken was on the left most lane running with the intention of taking a left turn. Now… see what happens when the MTC driver decided to move his bus to the left lane. Obviously the car driver cannot see the indicator. He can just see the huge vehicle moving in close to him from his right. The car driver would make an attempt to move to the left a little bit more. In this case, the driver decided to slow down and stop the vehicle.

 

The MTC driver cannot make an excuse saying he cannot see the car on his left. Check the rear view mirror of the bus, you can see the MTC driver.

 

Operation Successful…

The Driver or the Conductor of this bus (that runs on public money) does not care about the safety of other vehicles.  

By allowing the passengers travel on footboard and allow the passenger to get down on the road while the vehicle is in motion, they are endangering the passenger and putting other drivers in a difficult position. This shows their disregard for the safety of the passengers.

who is safe in this traffic ? Isn’t it time we see some serious effort from the authorities to educate the drivers and the public ? Are we ready to handle a crisis situation during peak traffic hours ?

Chennai traffic LIVE!

Kudos to Sify for the live feed of Chennai traffic on ChennaiLive.in. 

You can watch the traffic at these junctions: Kathipara , Thiruvanmiyur, Kilpauk, and  Kodambakkam

Let us wait and see how this effort by a non governmental firm will be used by the Traffic Police to make some positive changes.

BTW, it is really interesting to watch the traffic flow. 🙂

Why do I walk on the road… Defending jaywalkers… Part 1

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
jaywalking means “to cross a street carelessly or in an illegal manner so as to be endangered by traffic”.

Have you ever been forced to walk on the road… even though there is a footpath…

I would rather walk on the road than on a bad footpath…

To know one of the reasons, see these photographs by Dan:

Special thanks to Daniel Wilkinson for sharing his photographs. Dan is a professional Photojournalist. Visit his site to see more photographs on India.

How to solve this?

Ok. While Raks is focussing on exposing some of the most obvious traffic crimes that we are able to see on the roads – The same crimes that the authorities are choosing to look away from, I am going to be posting some proposed solutions for each of our traffic problems. This is more of brainstorming ideas than a proposal. Feel free to post your comments and shout out your opinions.

Someone had to do this. We have been seeing many blogs here and there with postings of traffic crimes every now and then. But, traffic crimes in chennai deserves more attention than a one off posts.

And this blog, we hope will serve this purpose.

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…

Who needs a helmet?

So… the helmet drama is over for the time being…

In Tamil Nadu and in Kerala…

People against Helmet and People for Helmet…

Government for Helmet and then after some sales… Government relaxes the order…

So as of now… we can drive without Helmet… No one is going to stop us…

Any way it was only for the “two wheelers” or only for mechanized two wheelers…

See this picture…

Isn’t this cyclist more prone to accidents than a person on a motor bike?

He is not interested in following the signal…

BTW, who said these signals are for cyclists ?

Cyclists have their on rules…

If you have any doubt, visit the traffic signal at Vadapalani junction on 100 ft. road.

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.