I wish that I was typing this post with news of the beginning of the removal of rumble strips. Sadly, the "promise" to remove the excessively high strips and to stop laying down more was totally false. The exact opposite is true. There have been three developments, and not one of them is for the better.
- Cat-eyes infused with existing rumble strips: This is a double-edged sword. One one hand, it makes rumble strips easier to spot at night. On the other, it makes them feel even more harsh than before, which really is saying something. It's good from a visibility perspective, but then again, this is a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.
- Rumble strips on the ORR: It breaks my heart to write this. Our one escape from the city roads (that would jump at every opportunity to rattle your skeleton and destroy your car), the one stretch of endless, smooth asphalt and the one place where you could use cruise control properly, has now been littered with rumble strips.
I fail to understand the need for these on the ORR (or most other roads for that matter, but that topic has been beaten to death already).
This comes mere days after the speed limit was raised to 120 km/h. The ORR is an EXPRESSWAY. The whole point of one is to enable commuters to cruise at constant speeds. I can see many accidents happening due to some people slamming on the brakes at 120 km/h while others behind them don't, ending up getting rear ended by others at highway speeds. Either that or everyone will just end up being forced to drive way below the limit to save their spines, rendering the whole concept of an expressway and its design speed of 120 km/h useless.
- New speed breakers (especially after flyovers): For a long time, there were barely any speed breakers in the city (especially compared to other cities). That is unfortunately now changing.
There are two locations near me where this has happened within the past few weeks. One is after the Mindspace junction flyover, where you are greeted by two sharp speed breakers right as you get off the flyover after the curve. This forces you to slow to a crawl just before merging with faster traffic coming from the left. It's the exact same situation at Biodiversity Park Flyover - II; what was previously fast-moving traffic merging with fast-moving traffic has now been made sloppy, chaotic and dangerous due to the speed breakers right after the flyover (on just half the road that too). Once again, this results in high volumes of crawling traffic merging with high volumes of fast-moving traffic, increasing the chances of mishaps.
These aren't narrow, residential lanes where speed breakers make sense. These are main roads with a uniform speed limit of 60 km/h. Traffic flow used to be smooth prior to this, but now it is a chore driving anywhere. Honestly speaking, if the nearest metro station wasn't nearly 10 kilometres away, I'd completely switch to traveling by the metro due to how tiring and frustrating city drives have become, even as a passenger and even when there isn't rush hour traffic. The speedometer and tachometer keep bouncing up and down like ping-pong balls and the average speed of commutes seems to be in terminal decline.
It’s saddening to see how these rumble strips ruin the otherwise flawless asphalt that lies underneath. Had they not existed, Telangana could very well be one of the best states to drive in India. In fact, the non-major highways are still absolutely blissful to drive on, since the rumble strips haven’t got to them yet, unlike major ones such as NH-44, NH-65, etc. Traffic flows smoothly without interruption and without needing to slam on the brakes frequently; journeys are quite stress-free and give you brilliant fuel economy too.
Meanwhile, this was the situation following recent rains. No more words needed.