Driving in Bangalore / India


Driving in Bangalore is quite the challenge. The most important aspect while driving in Bangalore city is never about being careful of the way one drives, but is about being careful of the way others drive. To avert any accidents all one has to do, in India, is to 'pre-empt' what other drivers would do, and act accordingly. Once this art of pre-emption is perfected, any driver can navigate the roads in Bangalore or any where else in India without as much a hitch. In pre-empting, a driver has to keep his/her mind open to the fact that he/she will encounter vehicles coming out of nowhere, cutting across lanes, turning without any indication...and other similar acts.

Accidents on Indian roads have now reached gargantuan proportions. Take Kerala for instance. (2001 report) While population in Kerala is declining with couples settling for one-or-two child norm, the vehicle population is soaring without correspondent infrastructure. So, of course, do the number of deaths and injuries on roads.

The vehicle population in the state, with three crore people, stood at 19.10 in 2001 as against 1.90 lakh in 1980. Every year, around two lakh vehicles are added. Of this 60 per cent are two wheelers, the transport data of the Planning Board states. Buses, the indicator of public transport system, form only 1.87 per cent of the total. Little wonder the poor are pushed to greater difficulty and so the overloading, and accidents result. The road length in all, including the national highways, come only to 1.24 lakh kilometres. Of this, really "motorable" roads are just 30,000 kilometres, the remaining being an apology for roads. The number of road accidents in Kerala rose to 34,387 in 1999-2000 as compared to 33,296 in the previous year. In all, 2,590 people died. Those suffered injuries of varied intensity were 47,860, which is second only to Maharashtra.

India Road Safety Data (2003) - Annual Fatalities in Road Accidents - 20.3 / 10000 vehicles

Number of fatalities from road motor vehicle accidents resulting in at least one person killed (with 30 days of the accident’s occurrence) per 10,000 road motor vehicles registered. Included in the accidents are: collisions between road vehicles, between road vehicles and pedestrians, between road vehicles and animals or fixed obstacles and with one road vehicle alone. Included are collisions between road and rail vehicles. Multi-vehicle collisions are counted as only one accident provided that any successive collisions happen at very short intervals

(Glossary of Transport Statistics, 2003)

India Vehicle Population -

Total Number of Motor Vehicles - 58.86
Motorized Vehicle "Ownership" -14.2 % households
Road Length - Total - 3,315,231 km


Pic : www.horizonsunlimited.com

Comments

AJ said…
Trining not criticism will help. This site http://driving-india.blogspot.com/ has been created with the purpose of providing driver education and training to all Indian road users. It is by far the most comprehensive website providing training in defensive driving. Learning simple road habits can make our roads safe and also free up congestion caused by traffic chaos.

At present 17 driver education videos aimed at changing the driving culture on Indian roads are available. The video are unique in that the footage is real life action from streets of London. We have copied the Western habits: Replaced the dhoti with denim, high rise buildings for Indian cottages, burgers and coke instead of Indian breads and perhaps sugarcane juice. Surely we can copy the Western ways of travelling too.

To watch the videos, interested readers may visit: http://driving-india.blogspot.com/

The videos cover the following topics:

Video 1: Covers the concept of Blind spots
Video 2: Introduces the principle of Mirrors, Signal and Manoeuvre
Video 3: At red lights, stop behind the stop line
Video 4: At red lights there are no free left turns
Video 5: The Zebra belongs to pedestrians
Video 6: Tyres and Tarmac (rather than bumper to bumper)
Video 7: Merging with the Main road
Video 8: Leaving The Main Road
Video 9: Never Cut Corners
Video 10: Show Courtesy on roads
Video 11: 5 Rules that help deal with Roundabouts
Video 12: Speed limits, stopping distances, tailgating & 2 seconds rule
Video 13: Lane discipline and overtaking
Video 14: Low beam or high beam?
Video 15: Parallel (reverse parking) made easy
Video 16: Give the cyclist the respect of a car
Video 17: Dealing with in-car condensation
Anonymous said…
I want to say how friendly and very help full that Lancing Driver Training were from the first phone call and my first lesson to my last lesson and on the day of my test and even after my test. They helped and guided me through the experience of driving such a large vehicle in a calm and un-rushed professional manor , but at the same time made me fully aware the responsibilities that are involved in becoming a professional HGV Driver. ny defensive driving
dhoottraining said…
I think the government should take some strict steps towards this. This is not at all a proper driving, if this is not reduced, the accidents cases will keep on increasing.

LGV Training
Peace in Pieces said…
I went down to the driving school’s office prepared with my cash because of their reviews. It was affordable and I opted for a 10 class package, and the road test.
MR truck license QLD

Popular Posts