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In some parts of the world, the rightmost (leftmost, where they drive on the right) lane has a different kind of surface that makes it uncomfortable to drive on it for prolonged durations. Perhaps our powers-that-be could consider such an arrangement (say frequent sections where cat's eyes are deployed orthogonal to the lane direction).

I came across this article in The Quint about accidents taking place on the newly opened Signature Bridge. With two accidents in two days, the newly-constructed Signature Bridge has become a death trap.

I would assume because of the fine road, youngsters must be stepping on it, like they do on the Worli bridge. It is not only over speeding but taking selfies by climbing the bridge boundaries.

Hope some safeguards are put in place, before it goes out of hand.

Link : https://www.thequint.com/news/india/...ter-bike-skids

An example of bad roads in rural Gujarat. This happened just in front of us at one of the villages in Anand district.

This lane is called hard shoulder in most countries and its meant to be used only during emergencies. Hard shoulders are separated with slow lane by Rumble Strip, which prevents drowsy or distracted drivers from drifting out of carriageway, as it's quite noisy to drive on it.

I would be extremely glad if powers that be dont go as sophisticated as this, and do only two things by the book, on our highways/expressways :

1. bridge/flyover joints where the sloping road meets the flat-top concrete structure - please ensure that the 'finishing' job is done and approved by actual human beings who have some iota of self respect left, and not by a bunch of orangutans from the zoo.

2. never accept bribes from the local panchayat or newly opened restaurant owner, and 'allow' median openings in the most dangerous of hidden curve locations, so that some village elders can cross easily and quickly reach heaven and/or some moron can suddenly dart across from the opposite direction, after spotting the restaurant/establishment

I know what hard (and soft) shoulders are, and I was not talking about them. Please read my post carefully - I was talking of the rightmost lane (in India); the lane that is closest to the carriageway separator or median. The one that you are supposed to use only while overtaking slower traffic but in reality is used constantly by many road users.

A tragic accident near Mandya when a speeding bus fell into a canal.
More than 24 people have lost their lives.


https://www.news18.com/news/india/at...y-1949167.html

I just reached mysore couple of minutes back. Was driving and saw this huge jam just after Mandya where we take a right to go towards Melukote, didn’t know it was due to this tragedy. Also, the bridge across Kaveri while entering Sriranagapatna has been made one way, saw a huge jam and took a diversion. Looked like a sugarcane lorry had toppled. Sorry no pictures as was busy finding alternative routes.

Selfies are a rampant problem on every good-looking road, people stop and start taking selfies as though they are at the Taj Mahal. Even if it is slightly tolerable on the shoulder but some do take them on the median, parking their bikes on the right shoulder of a dual carriage way (in the centre). I have even seen people taking selfies while riding aligning themselves on the dotted white line.

The other problem is grossly misjudging the turning capabilities of their bikes of cars on a fast sweeping bend, specially one that goes downhill ever so slightly. These usually result in vehicles flying off the road meeting some ghastly fate.

Yesterday, was a Dog Day on NICE. Travelling at 80-90 kph, suddenly faced a darting dog on the left lane, with a swift following about 100 - 150 m behind. Both cars adequately slowed down and the dog would have crossed the road successfully hadn't the swift guy decided to make most of this moment to overtake me, for which he had to do some more manoeuvring on the right lane and shoulder, resulting in the dog darting right back to the left lane. Did a complete stop with no traffic behind to let the petrified dog go back to wherever it came from.

Swift guy was lucky, in my experience: No good can ever come from overtaking a vehicle doing an emergency stop specially when you have more than adequate space, front and back, to stop yourself.

I don't know why people think 'I could overtake any vehicle if it slows down no matter what the situation is'. I have always come across the below scenarios during my daily drives. I used to drive through a road whose tarred surface width is not more than the width of a car (Honda City) + one RE Bullet. So when ever two cars comes from opposite direction both the drivers brake and take their cars a little on to the muddy surface which is not in a good shape, hence need to take it very slow. Everything seems fine till both cars brake, after that a large group of two wheeler following the two cars start overtaking and the two cars whose drivers applied the 'common sense' or 'the best solution for the scenario' gets stuck for some time. I don't really understand these two wheeler's now, the way they overtake, the way they merge into a main road from a side road etc. all seems like an 'act of Yamaraj'.

Another scenario is, I have to take a deviation everyday to reach my office so that traffic can be avoided. The deviation is through Phase 1 of Infopark Cochin to reach phase 2 Infopark. After reaching the Phase 1 gate before taking a right to main road I keep left side because I know there can be cars in the main road which may enter Phase 1 through the same gate. Then the miracle happens, all the cars and bikes following me will over take me and blocks the right side of the road preventing cars from entering the Phase 1 gate. These guys the so called 'Techies' :Frustrati, most of them are Engineering graduates and still they don't have the basic common sense to understand they are creating a traffic jam. Instead of waiting for 10 secs, these guys will make everyone wait for more than 5 mins.

Yesterday one of my classmates, met with a fatal accident near Ballupet on his way to Sakleshpur. He was travelling in his ford fiesta along with his mother from Mysore. As per the information available, a bus was stationed on his lane and he ended up hitting it from behind, resulting in two deaths. He was a sedate driver :-(

RIP, both of them. Its disheartening to listen about death, where you can connect yourself with.

Stationery vehicles, parked hazardously, constitute to nearly a quarter of accidents. More accidents happen at night, where parking lights are either missing or not switched on.

Agree with both your observations. Some bike riders on the highway think that the whole road is theirs. In a curve, they misjudge the curvature, and are too fast which will end up in them going across lanes. This has happened to me on multiple occasions and if there is any vehicle next to them, it would have ended up in a disaster. The faster ones end up outside of the road. IMO, if one cant track a lane accurately in a curve be it in a car or bike, they are unfit to drive.

The second one is pure common sense which lacks in many people driving on highways. If you see an empty road ahead of you, and a car ahead is abruptly slowing down, there is a reason for that. The reason could be as important as a dog or another object on the road, or something lame as wanting to take a picture. In either cases, its better to anticipate something wrong and slow down instead of assuming nothing has happened and carry on. Thats what I worry when I slow down to let someone cross the road in front of me. I am worried that someone next to me might run them down since they wont understand why I am slowing down or stopping.

Anticipatory driving. Once I was maintaining a 'more than normal' distance between my car and the carrier truck ahead of me. My wife, who was sitting beside me asked me about this 'unusual' driving. Suddenly the loaded carrier truck plucked one average size dried branch from one of the trees planted along the roads. She understood why; given the unusual height of the loaded truck, I was expecting this to happen. The distance gave me ample time and space to brake slowly and veer around the branch fallen on road.

So, not only ahead, you need to watch out what's over your head too!

The above phenomenon is standard pan-India behavior.

Everybody has the common-sense to understand the jam they would be creating. It is done intentionally with the thought "Let me somehow squeeze through from the right and get away quick"

Now imagine every one thinking the same and barging through the right/opposite lane and blocking oncoming traffic.

Everybody knows the rules but they also know that enforcement of rules/law is weak and they can get away with it.

Enforcement/penalization is the need of the hour.

In countries where traffic is systematic, people are afraid of breaking the rules due to ruthless enforcement.