[GKR9900]

Time and again it has been emphasised in our forum about the need for proper driving etiquette like keeping a safe distance from the vehicle ahead and refraining from road rage. Although I was no saint in these matters, I had been trying to enforce these principles into my regular driving. A lot of the time, sticking to these principles means that you will be left out to fend for yourselves in the ‘traffic wars’ that’s plying on our roads. Leave one car-length from the vehicle ahead and a bus, car, two autos, and half a dozen two-wheelers and that over-enthusiastic cyclist will surge ahead to occupy that space. Overtake that wheezing car revving up to 6000 rpm to maintain 80km/h, and soon one finds himself locking horns with Vin Diesel’s apprentice. In spite of such negative experiences, I have tried to stick to proper driving etiquette. Can’t say I had been 100% successful in doing it, but I’m at least close to 90%. Every now and then, there comes an incident that humbles a typical Indian driver no matter how skilled he/she is. In my case, there has been quite a few incidents over the past few months that shows how unpredictable our roads really are. I have shared a few instances in team-bhp like the ones below:

A pothole launching a scooter into the air

https://youtu.be/fTXP34yE8YI

A disciplined rider getting entangled by a sinister rogue pole-wire

https://youtu.be/wuv-vPejILA

An auto rickshaw guy beat by the very traffic he was trying to beat

https://youtu.be/kmjMD414_ak

I was the cammer in all these cases and ensuring a safe distance from the vehicle at front ensured that I stayed a witness than a perpetrator!

The next incident that I’m about to share really drives the point as to how defensive driving can really turn the tables on a potentially ill-fateful journey.

https://youtu.be/t45RvcKOi9E

My dad and I were going to Thrissur to check one of our properties. I was enjoying the momentary bursts of speed that narrow congested Kerala highways allow whenever I had a clear road ahead. After one such instance, I see a congestion up ahead with a KSRTC bus up front and a few vehicles tailing it. I also see a person walking on the fast lane close to the median. I slowed down and decided to proceed behind the convoy. The Dzire in front of me decided to overtake the Alto ahead of it through the left lane. Assuming that the Alto is slow-moving, I also proceeded after the Dzire driver. The Dzire driver had almost finished the overtaking manoeuvre when the Alto driver accelerated and honked his way through, taunting him. The Dzire driver gave way and the Alto was again in front with the KSRTC bus ahead of it. Seeing the commotion, I decelerated and then I find this impatient Fabia driver honking his way through, overtaking me and proceeding to ride behind the Alto. I was irritated by the shenanigans pulled by the Alto and the Fabia, but decided to take a deep breath and slow down. Maybe the guys are in a real hurry, I thought. Little did I know that this tiny bit of slowing down would become a huge sigh of relief within the next few seconds. Now this is the picture in front of me: the Alto and Fabia are travelling in the right lane. The Dzire and I are travelling in the left lane. The KSRTC driver in front of them is travelling in both lanes trying to squeeze in between an Ertiga in the left lane and a lorry in the right lane. The Alto driver is driving dangerously close to the KSRTC trying to prevent a potential overtake attempt by the Dzire driver. The Fabia driver seems to think that his best attempt at overtaking is to follow the Alto, so he too proceeds close to that. All this over-crowding was making me uncomfortable so I slowed down further. And then it happened! The KSRTC braked suddenly swerving to the left and stopped in the middle of the road. The Alto driver slammed on the brakes managing to just hit the KSRTC’s rear. The Fabia driver in spite of his best efforts couldn’t stop the car in time ramming into the Alto’s rear causing the Alto to again hit the KSRTC. All of this was over in an instant. Then the question came up. Why did the KSRTC brake suddenly? As you can see in the video, some poor soul who was waiting on the median slipped onto the fast lane causing the mishap. I shudderingly remember the look of relief on his face of being glad to be alive. That guy should thank his stars. As for the Alto and Fabia, the cars really took some beating but the occupants were seemingly ok. For me however, this was a humbling experience. There were a number of variables here that seem to lead the way to an impending crash. The people walking on the fast lane, the Dzire trying to overtake through the left lane, the Alto driver’s ego, the truck driver riding in the fast lane ahead of the KSRTC, the KSRTC weaving in and out of lanes hampering the visibility and judgement of all vehicles at the back, the Fabia driver’s impatience, the bad luck of the guy who fell onto oncoming traffic, the lack of space between all the vehicles. Had I been egoistic and tried some reckless manoeuvre amid all this commotion, it would have been me who would have kissed that Alto’s back. Myself and the Dzire driver were thankfully just witnesses just because we decided to take a back seat amid all this action.

To those who are reading this, I plead again:
- Maintain safe distance from the vehicle at front
- Maintain lane discipline
- Practice defensive driving
- If someone seems to be taunting you with immature tactics, just let them pass
- Expect the worst. Even if it’s a highway, people or animals can wander onto the roads

This incident is a grim reminder of some of the oddities that plague our roads and just emphasises on the necessity of proper driving etiquette. It may not always be rewarding, but the few times it does is really worth it!

[CarNerd]

The First thing to do on Indian roads is to reduce speed. There's no point in acting like F1 drivers on track trying to overtake everything in front. Most of the fatal accidents are a result of high speed. Experienced drivers should reduce their average speed instead of increasing them.

The second important thing is Patience - People drive as though they'll lose crores every minute they get late. I can understand about certain emergency situations where one has to hurry but most people do it 24x7.

Third is Traffic Rules which most don't know as usual. You can do all the defensive driving you want but can you prevent some idiot from ramming into you or something falling on you? I have seen many accident videos where people get caught in an accident for no fault of theirs. This is where Prayer can be useful for those who believe in God.

The authorities are busy coming up with one rule after the other but no one is thinking of educating students. I don't know how many 18 year olds get license every year without knowing anything about driving. This is serious and we should keep reminding our family and friends about safety.

[aargee]

I'm still in hesitation to share this here as I had originally refrained from posting this in this post on our recent trip to MH on account of word of flares

Anyway this thread ignited me to post on some of our observation & lessons learnt.

• We found most (say 80% to quantify) cars don't like to get overtaken. How we know? We cruise in steady 100, either when nearing the other car or after having overtaken them, they suddenly start picking up speed. Again most of the times (say again 90% this time) when I yield to their speed letting them go, they no longer are interested in maintaining speeds over triple digit & give up
• Only one Tiago (or Tigor), perhaps in the entire trip was lunkhead in this stretch. He would never let us go in the front (60 Kmph cruise) nor he would speed up over 50-55 Kmph. Finally when I overtook him with difficulty, he came behind us with blinking lights for which I promptly yielded him way thinking he would speed off & he didn't. Instead he continued his drama. So out of the 2900 odd Km, this section was one to pump the adrenaline on account of this lunatic
  
• When we yield (ensure explicitly that the other party knows this) way for others, there's good chance that others (if not everyone, at least 80-90% of them) will certainly yield way for us. Although I had known this fact, what I learnt in recent times is, this act of yielding has to be explicitly proclaimed so that the fellow roadies understands
• When we yield, we take the foot off the gas or cancel & reengage the cruise after 2-3 seconds, enabling the fellow roadsters to overtake with ease
• And we always, always, always, prepare to yield so that even before people think of overtaking us, they've right of way
• From our observation, most standards of defensive techniques go awry in Indian driving standards; we follow a middle path combining defensive driving & Indian driving standards, call it, ahimsa driving.

On account of the word lessons learnt, my instructor then had told something that I would never ever forget. He said, driving is a lesson to be learnt over lifetime & can never be learnt fully. Each time you drive you should learn something otherwise you're soon to become a dead man.

[ellip5i5]

A moment of hot headedness can indeed be very costly, thank you for sharing this.

I want to just highlight that the behaviour of your fellow companions in the vehicle is also important. If they keep egging you on to not let anyone overtake you or incite you it’s very detrimental to staying composed.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by GKR9900

1. Maintain safe distance from the vehicle at front
2. Maintain lane discipline
3. Practice defensive driving
4. If someone seems to be taunting you with immature tactics, just let them pass
5. Expect the worst. Even if it’s a highway, people or animals can wander onto the roads

IMO, it is easier said than done.

#1 & #2 is important, but unfortunately, it is beyond our 100% control. I can maintain safe distance and stick to lane but somebody else will squeeze in to take up the vacuum.

#5 is the most important which leads to #3. Anticipate and be prepared. And use all driving aids (aka mirrors/cameras) to be alert/aware of one's surroundings.

[vabhian]

Thank you or sharing this and including the very relevant videos.

I consider myself as a sedate driver who values safe driving over anything else. In my experience, Indian roads (highways included) are full of surprises - animals, people, wrong side driving, reckless driving can be found almost everywhere and anywhere. One has to account for everything. Maintaining a safe distance is still an alien concept for lot of drivers on the roads. Just last month, I had an experience with a crazy driver on NH-44 who almost caused a collision b/w multiple cars due to his reckless passing between lanes.

As you correctly said, experience is the best teacher. I had two experiences (thankfully, no mishap happened) almost decade back which ingrained "safe driving" in my head. I have seen some folks I know who make it a competition to clock the same hours (or less) than the other person to cover the same distance and then brag, which in turn causes them to overspeed and drive a bit recklessly.

[ajayc123]

Driving on our roads appears like a car racing and ego game for a lot of guys.

Anyways, I can't do too much about it, but the game that I play is to stay clear of such gamers.

While I try to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle ahead, but I feel it is more important to maintain safer distance from a tailgating vehicle. So I just let the aggressive tailgaters to pass by at the first opportunity.

[deathwalkr]

Would rather we call it common sense! But as the old saying goes, common sense is not very common :P

[aniyo]

I had been to Coorg in Sept to celebrate 1st birthday of our daughter.

Normally I used to maintain 110is speed on highways but with daughter in car my speed came to 80-90kmph. The best part of the entire journey is that we completed 260km in 6 hours with couple of breaks. No stress at all. Age and being a father has made me calmer and I don't care who overtake me now.

Cherry on top, FE was amazing. Entire trip including driving in Coorg was 21.4KMPL. And return journey was 22.8KMPL. I did bangalore coorg bangalore in a single tank on my Nexon diesel

[chaitanyakrish]

Originally Posted by GKR9900

- Maintain safe distance from the vehicle at front

Very true. I have seen many people, following vehicles closely even on highways.

When we follow vehicles closely, especially heavy vehicles; we become their puppet. When they brake, we have to brake, when they swerve, we have to swerve, when they hard brake, we have no other options to crash or swerve left or right, which can be another disaster.

Lets try to understand this in basic Physics. If two vehicles are traveling at the same speed in the same direction, the gap between them remains constant, which gives a false security that we are at a safe distance.
But, the situation changes, if the vehicle infront had to brake suddenly, this is when the various factors like friction comes into play, which again depends on many factors like the tyres, braking distance, brake power, driver reaction time etc which complicates the equation.

Safe bet is have enough following distance based on our speed and maintain it, this gives better control over the unknown variables on road.

I have seen a similar situation few days ago, no crash here but the driver took a wrong step, which could've turned fatal on a bad day.

https://youtu.be/3LMmhW_C9Co

Originally Posted by ajayc123

While I try to maintain a safe distance from the vehicle ahead, but I feel it is more important to maintain safer distance from a tailgating vehicle.

Yes, I let them overtake me in case, if they are too close. I found this video helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phTkrUPrMW4

@Mods, please merge both of my posts. I forgot to multi quote posts. Sorry for that and Thank You.

[rajshenoy]

So true. I always try my best to anticipate while driving(if that is what is meant by defensive). Better to be safe and avoid the accident than be sorry !!

However we can never be 100% sure if it is safe. I think that is the key here to never assume it is 100% safe.

Another example I would like to highlight here is the driver distraction from within the car. With all the connected tech inside our cars today, distraction is natural. Even you take the eyes off momentarily even to say toggle the MID, say a stray animal could come ahead of you.

[prashantuchil]

My experience from the highway trips - Never drive in the right most lane except for overtaking and that as well only if you have clear visibility of the median. NHAI has done a good job in beautification of the medians with flowering plants n all - that looks good during the day and helps block the headlight glare at night, but it has a very big flip side as well.

In one of the recent trips, one Dzire cab was cruising at 100+ on the right most lane while I was minding my own business in the left lane. Out jumped 2 cows from the bushes in the median right in front of the Dzire - the driver had no time to react and both the cows hit the car head on and went flying in the air.

The car's bumper, bonnet, windshield were all damaged badly, air bags deployed - Occupants did not seem to have any major injury. They were lucky that the cow did not go through the windshield, else the story would have been different.

After witnessing this, I never stay for long on the right most lane which has a median with thick vegetation.

Sedate and defensive driving is much more enjoyable than reaching your destination few minutes earlier.

[gchig95]

Great post!! . will definitely try to follow defensive driving as that small ego overtake is not worth an accident and losing peace of mind.

[roby.thomas]

While keeping safe distance from vehicle in front is the right thing to do in highway, this is a problem in city traffic due to the two/three wheeler. They decide to zig-zag between you and the car in the front to overtake. Unless the road safety authorities penalize this behavior (Sadly they don't care. They are eager to catch riding without helmet, pollution certificate). Most often you end up with scratched fender, or bumper if you are stopped in traffic. If you are at decent city speeds (25/35/40 kmph), those who overtake on the right suddenly tries to take safe spot in front of you (infact a herd of motorcycles) and surely no safe distance is enough. If you happen to knock one of them, fault is yours. If you tried to steer left, someone might already be overtaking you from the left. So I do not leave much room ahead in city runs and tries to close the gap in a hurry. I hate to drive this way, but I've had learned this the hard way. A seemingly aggressive driver is the only defense against these rogue drivers, as they do fear a bigger idiot than themselves.

[nirleo]

Two important point many miss are:
1. "Tailgating" - This means that one vehicle is just following another vehicle (maybe a friend's car or road rage) without the visibility of what's ahead of the vehicle in front of you, especially during overtaking and turning. We should never tailgate another vehicle until we are sure of the road ahead especially during overtaking.

2. "Blind Spot" - This means that due to the up and downs of the road, especially in ghat section or rural roads, the visibility of the road ahead is not visible after the slope (up) of the road. The road can be straight or a sudden turn or an on-coming car in their right lane, which is not visible. We need to slow down when we have a blind-spot.