sameer

Nice blog http://silkboard.wordpress.com/2006/...-driver-again/ your view please??

was out driving around today. I rarely drive on weekdays as I work from home. Even though the drives were done at 11 am and 3:30 pm, I hit all the usual jams. Marathahalli bridge (Bangalore), 20 minutes each way. BTM signal on Outer Ring Road, 10-15 minutes each way. I am used to getting stuck at these two places.

But what made my temper soar was this BMTC bus at a cross on Banerghatta (BG) road, right near Shoppers Stop. It is a "T", most guys were trying to turn right onto BG road, a few like me wanted to go left. I hit into a jam right near this T. I looked around and realized that this bus was standing ahead as if the driver got his license in the US. The big thing (KA01 F3525) was idling bang on right side of the road. See if you can figure from this picture.


So this bus had blocked oncoming traffic, and oncoming traffic was in turn blocking the guys trying to make a right. And I was stuck behind - yes - the "classic Indian deadlock"!

Unable to bear this mess, I got out of my car, charged right towards the bad driver. My objective was to give him a mouthful and most important, get his name and license number so that I could lodge a complaint with BMTC. Now is when the most interesting thing happened. Seeing me rush towards this driver in anger, a few guys joined me, one of them a fellow BMTC driver from another bus stuck behind me!

This guilty driver - a youngish guy - got really scared now! Our angry group gave him a mouthful, our driver just listened, and hoped that he wouldn't be dragged down and beaten up! I would not have let such a thing happen, thankfully it didn't. But I was surprised to see that so many folks actually took the time to get out of their vehicles to express their anger. Why did they have to wait for me to take the lead? Beats me.

Eventually, we made that bus reverse a bit, and the classic Indian deadlock came to a swift end. One dumb driver made 50 vehicles waste 15 minutes of time.

PS1: I notice that a lot of road improvement projects are in progress on airport road and around ring road. Things are tight due to this right now. But I am getting hopeful about things getting better.

PS2: One more thing caught my attention. I saw shattered windshield glass at 50% of the places where they have gaps in the divider on Ring Road. These are spots where guys join in from smaller roads. No jokes, half of such locations between Silk Board and Marathahalli have had accidents recently (today)? Scary reality.