New breed of taxis & delivery vehicles destroying road discipline?

When you have to drive/ride at 100% capacity 100% of the time, speed is prioritized over safety, road manners, road rules & courtesy.

GTO recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

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Have been thinking about this for a while. Just had to share my thoughts after reading ach1lles post (excerpt below).

Originally Posted by ach1lles:

It is crazy just how defensive you have to be on the road these days. The lack of confidence and fear I feel of hurting someone on the road and myself has increased to an uncomfortable level. I’m sure I make mistakes too but the sheer disregard for life I see on our roads blows my mind every single day.

Since road safety without following rules is an inverse function of time, as with time numbers (and frequency) of the number of people driving badly will increase, and the margins due to added volumes will reduce, rather than skill that something adverse will happen.

We are too many, too much in a hurry, and too distracted.

My opinion:

• The steep rise of consumer-focused commercial vehicles (Uber, Ola, delivery riders of Swiggy / Blinkit, small delivery pickup trucks etc. etc.) have been significant contributors to a decline in overall road sense & manners.
• Till 10 years back, a majority of cars & bikes plying on city roads were privately owned. It can be argued that private owners drive their vehicles more carefully, and take better care of their vehicles. Owner's pride & all that. But also, our culture isn't known to treat 3rd-party property well (and many delivery vehicles are company or fleet-owned).
• Since 2013 however, there has been a massive surge in commercial vehicles due to e-commerce deliveries, app-based taxi cabs, delivery riders of Swiggy / Zomato / Blinkit etc. As a percentage of vehicles on the road, Uber/Ola/delivery riders have risen from almost nothing in 2013 to high double digits today.
• Drivers & Riders of Uber, Ola, Zepto, Blinkit, Swiggy, Zomato etc. are always in a hurry. The greater the distance they cover (or the more orders they serve), the higher their pay. As a result, they are always fighting the clock. This breed is in perpetual “super fast” mode and the only thing on their mind is, how do I get from point A to point B in the quickest manner possible?
• It's a fundamental problem. When you have to drive/ride at 100% capacity 100% of the time, speed is prioritized over safety, road manners, road rules & courtesy.
• New trend of deliveries in 10 minutes by Zepto, Blinkit & gang!! LOL, do you expect this kind of rider to be calm & composed? The riders themselves say they have to be reckless, or else they won’t be able to make any money (news source). Heck, other than the occasional medicine, I can’t think of anything I need in “10 minutes”. But guess what, quick e-commerce & 10-minute deliveries are seeing exponential growth. 10-minute delivery is the new 30-minute delivery.

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Not saying this is the only reason. Neither am I saying that private car owners aren’t to blame. But IMHO, this new breed of commercial vehicles is a significant contributor to a significant decline in road manners. Most often, within the city, when I see idiotic drivers, it's usually on a vehicle with yellow plates.

Big fan of these services and I am a regular on Uber, Ola, Zomato & Swiggy. But their sole focus on quick turnaround times & serving the most number of customers in X number of working hours has destroyed general road sense in India. If your family's meals depended on you covering Juhu-Mahim in 20 minutes, how would you drive/ride? A fixed salary (instead of 30 bucks per delivery), monitoring of accident/incident rates per driver/rider, setting more realistic customer expectations in terms of delivery time, strict enforcement of rules by the traffic police etc. are the only ways to curb this menace.

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Here's what BHPian Axe77 had to say on the matter:

Speaking for Mumbai, a few more points to add to the above.

1. Unlicensed low-capacity electric two-wheelers (as delivery vehicles): These don’t have a registration plate but are no different from regular scooters for all practical purposes. They move about with even more impunity since there is no legal cost/consequence to them. (An ICE or regular registered EV scooter is at least in theory liable to be fined).
2. Eeco share taxis: In some sense, these are a new breed of taxis operating in a very specific manner. These again are operating on small regular routes as “share taxis”. Typically last mile connectivity between a major train station (for e.g. Mahalakshmi in Mumbai) to nearby office complexes. They again are on a mission to maximise their “circuits” / “rounds” and drive VERY rashly, also completely devoid of any traffic rule compliance. Again, a lot of impunity given strong union / political patronage I’m not sure what.
3. Two wheelers in general: Regardless of whether delivery vehicles or privately owned, these have started riding (and parking) like pedestrians. Move however and wherever they like. Traffic rules are not even general guidance, let alone something requiring hard compliance.

Here's what BHPian fordday had to say on the matter:

Very timely thread. The situation in Bangalore is far worse than described above for Mumbai. The density of vehicles compared to the road size here is astoundingly high.

I have been driving and riding here for the last 25 years but of late it seems I lost my driving skills. These set of drivers who do not care a hoot about causing accidents to themselves and others are so much more in numbers that they rule the road.

Here's what BHPian Kosfactor had to say on the matter:

Before the arrival of Ola\Uber\Swiggy - the most athletic riders were - Dominos Pizza guys. They have that X Minutes or Pizza is a free type deal.

Give the same targets to a cab driver, a small truck\CV driver (Porter etc) etc and we have plenty of hunger-guided missiles on the road with varying degrees of destructive capabilities.

Also one needs to note that most of the time during rush hour the CBD traffic will be Yellow boards (used to be a lot higher when there was no WFH), they are 'experienced' drivers that drive around with a different logic in their head than the average car driver. What may seem odd to the rest of us is perfectly normal to them in a day`s work!

What is the solution? In CBD at least lane discipline, rash driving etc can be monitored and fixed, but for the rest of the roads, I do not think much can be done at the moment apart from education, awareness of driving discipline and road safety.

Here's what BHPian ninjatalli had to say on the matter:

Adding my 2 cents.

Enough has been said about commercial vehicles, and I agree with those views completely. But the personal vehicle owners (2W and 4W) aren't off the hook. Things have changed a lot and the impact on the roads is quite visible.

1. The #MeToo effect. If you see others following rules, chances are you'll be influenced to follow the rules too. The same also holds true, actually, it applies more; given the large rule-breaking that commercial vehicles do on a daily basis.
2. Vehicles have become more powerful, more faster and easier to drive. The "fun" factor has gone up. This ends up driving more recklessly and taking unnecessary risks.
3. Everyone's in a hurry. And with more bloated egos around the world, this brings more aggressiveness onto the road; irrespective of whether it's a personal car or a private car. People pride themselves on getting to their destinations faster (e.g. today I reached the office x mins earlier).
4. Rules breaking is fine. Fines haven't scaled up as much as the Indian spending capability has. The remote chances of getting a fine - I can pay that. Or ignore that till someone really holds a gun to my head.

The silver lining for this segment? Insurance rates are on the rise. Every mistake will be more expensive for the personal driver/owner. But unfortunately, that might be too little to make a change.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.