Submit motor vehicle traffic violation pictures/video that you would have clicked from your personal camera/phone here. The title of your comment has to read APAD - <date as DD/MMM/YY> - <some text>
[PS: Help on how to insert a picture, via flickr, or directly]
Comments
APAD 2/DEC/10 - Transport dept... et tu?
APAD 3/Dec/10 - Squeezing, 2 MV in 1 lane
@IDS - Using your Cell Phone?
Guess above is enough proof to book you for using your cell phone while driving? :):)
Is a picture necessary?
I see a lot of traffic violations, bizarre driving etc from the safety of my office shuttle.
I will definitely post the Vehicle numbers, time and location here (unfortunately without pictures as I still use a relic phone without a camera).
@Ravi - Using not talking/texting
Not talking or texting though. Talking/texting is what takes your attention away. Anyways, none of it was when my car was in motion, so I was logically not driving at that time. You can make out from the brake lights in the first picture, in the second picture the traffic ahead of me had just started to move.
Oh and technically I was not using a phone but a camera, last I checked there was no law on using camera while driving. :)
@ashok
I will definitely post the Vehicle numbers, time and location here (unfortunately without pictures as I still use a relic phone without a camera).
Appreciate the effort to participate, non-picture we anyway talk all over this site. This will soon become a picture blog once the features get added to the site. Need more people to contribute with pictures because the key is to show & tell. When you get to the point of informing the driver of his driving style it will make an impact when he/she sees his driving from outside. Each one in his car thinks he is driving properly and wont take your word for it. Moreover the idea of the pic blog is to put it up for all of us to comment. One might think of something as bad driving while it may not necessarily be so. DIscussions on the picture will spread the awareness and understanding among everybody. tech@praja are looking at the feasibility of the picblog.
APAD 4/Dec/10 - Ode to Pedestrians
Sorry for the departure from traffic, but, on a day when one Praja member is meeting a lawyer to file a PIL/RTI and all such stuff for pedestrian rights, I am dedicating todays weekend picture to pedestrians of our city
Pic: Pedestrians are forced to walk on Ulsoor road as the road is being fixed and debris dumped on the sidewalk
A nice picture. But what is the point? The debris should be cleared as fast as possible. Was it done? psaram42
APAD 5/Dec/10 - 1 lane, how many vehicles?
Lane is just a name
Thanks for joining in Bheema. Classic case of BBMP's road engineering skills. That lane is almost 5 meters wide against a classic 3.2 meters tight lane.
APAD 7/Dec/2010 - BMTC As usual
See how even rainwater drainage is occupied ! What a "lane disclipline" ! Observe both the buses. If I was not observing lane discipline I would have been just behind the blue bus. Though I felt sorry for wasting space, I thought it was worthy to do so.
Note: Picture was taken near E-City Phase-1 Signal, during red signal.
That lane is almost 5 meters
That lane is almost 5 meters wide against a classic 3.2 meters tight lane.
It has to be argued, IMO that at even 3.2 m (IRC norms, mind you) actually encourages bad lane behavior. In the absence of us having an ability to rationalize IRC norms, we should definitely make the pitch for 3.3m to be the absolute upper limit on permissible lane width.
TM
APAD 8/Dec/2010 - Classic entropy at work
This was taken at BDA jn. on Chowdiah rd. The bus stop is to the left of the picture and within 100mtrs have to cut across 2 lanes to get to BDA magic overpass across palace road. If it were only buses I can understand, even cars & 2 wheelers who dont have to be at the bus stop go as left as they can and cut right into the overpass. SO in this picture the blue BMTC is the 2nd lane which can go on the 2 lane overpass but the 3rd lane is formed by the pvt bus and the white ambassador forms the 4th lane which will also cut into the 2 lane overpass. Most of the 2 wheelers all over the road are also heading towards the 2 lane overpass. There is both road engineering fault & indiscipline issues at work. I know what BBMP is thinking and NO, the answer is not to widen the overpass.
Whats your engineering solution to this situation?
IDS - Good take
One possible work around is
One possible work around is to move the bus stop to the other side of the magic box, after the downward ramp. This will reduce lot of cutting across the road. You do not see many vehicles coming from palace side and going towards windsor manor and hence buses moving into the bus stop will not be cutting across vehicles . The down side is bus passengers have to walk more.
Impact of downstream bus stop
One possible work around is to move the bus stop to the other side of the magic box, after the downward ramp.
The carriage way is narrower on the other side and will definitely cause backup on to the magic box and beyond because of the sheer number of buses that stop here. Like you said the walk to the bus stop across the road which serves Guttahalli & beyond will be too far.
The solution is to mark the lanes & bus stop as also physically separate the entry to the overpass with kerb stones
Lanes need to be marked that the engineering gaffe, but if the buses have to go on the overpass towards windsor manor and also stop to drop passengers they will continue to cut across.
Unplug the bus bay
This is a map of the place (please zoom all the way in manually in the map, for some reason the auto setting of zoom=19 isnt working). The big rd marker is the bus stop in question with a bus bay and all, the big blue is the bus stand on the other side which need to be connected. There are 2 lanes of traffic which go on to the overpass and there is one lane which turns left on to palace cross(right in the bottom of picture). Consider this, govt has acquired palace land behind the bus stand as a part of the circumference land deal. God forbid they actually use it here in which case the sidewalk attached bus stop will move 2 more lanes further outside(right into palace grounds). What happens then?The clue might be to unplug the bus stop from the sidewalk and put it somewhere else. Where would that be?
APAD 9/Dec/2010 - Unplug indeed
This is somewhat similar to some of the problems at the Cable-stayed bridge/ORR junction in KR Puram that were discussed in the now disbanded KR Puram Road Engg group (as some of sb's pics demonstrate:
Atleast we don't have to factor multiple confounding factors this time :)
One option for the BDA junction mess would be to (see pic below):
TM
Island bus stop
The island serves forms a bus stop and one of the landing places for a skywalk (other landing places could be either extremes of Chowdiah Rd.
You got it! Get the island bus stop with a bus bay to act as a divider that naveen hinted at and also to get ped crossing to bus stands on either side. A bus bay will keep the buses off the 2 lanes going overhead and pull in quickly without cutting off the left turning traffic going into palace cross.
The exit lane you have marked can be used as a left turn go to palace cross instead of having to come back and make more lanes towards windsor manor as the wall wont allow any more lanes and considering there is left turn from palace cross into chowdiah towards windsor manor that requires space
The twist in the tale will be when palace grounds land from gayathri vihar entrance (near mekhri circle) to Cauvery jn will be used to create more lanes with trees in the middle.
APAD 10/Dec/2010 - Wrong side @ intersection
Taken @ sankey road bashyam circle on top of the bund coming from malleshwaram 18 cross, which has a single lane for both side traffic. You can see the 2 cars trying to jump the queue waiting for signal, from the wrong side & blocking on coming traffic at an intersection with no guilt of wrongdoing. It is considered their right & privelege to drive the way they want.
Island bus stop
I was actually thinking on the same lines in fact with buses with doors on both sides and creating an island by widening the median. The problem with this method is most of the vehicles tail the vehicles in front of them, in this cases buses and try to cut off from the bus lane at the very entrance to the bus lane and thus creating obstruction to the traffic behind . It is better to make the buses move away from the line of traffic than trying to move the whole traffic away from the bus lane.
You can see the 2 cars trying to jump the queue waiting for signal, from the wrong side & blocking on coming traffic
Haven't you noticed many times on that road the traffic police themselves allow vehicles going towards vyalikaval move on the wrong side. That makes people think it is "OK" to go on the wrong side.
Merges & backups
in fact with buses with doors on both sides
Dont need any physical modifications to the bus. See the drawing from TM. It a normal bus bay on the 3rd lane with a divider like marathahalli or residency rd (Bangalore club) stops.
It is better to make the buses move away from the line of traffic than trying to move the whole traffic away from the bus lane
Yes, buses need to move into a barricaded third lane leaving the 2 lanes go straight to the overpass and drop off people on an island bus stop. In this case, a footpath from the island will go all the way to the ped magic box under the BDA underpass where the peds can cross over to the other side.
The bus bay entrance generally may get blocked if there is a backup but you will notice in this particular place the only reason for back up is the chaotic merge at the mouth because of the multiple lanes created by the vehicles. The 2 other places where there is back up on this road is also because of merge issues, at the DGQA residential compound before mekhri circle where 5 lanes narrow into 2 & half and at gayathri vihar gate where 5 lanes narrow into 2. 3 merges in the entire stretch cause close to 20 minutes of travel delay everyday.
Been a victim
Haven't you noticed many times on that road the traffic police themselves allow vehicles going towards vyalikaval move on the wrong side.
Yes, 3 years ago I was a victim of this police "convinience" at the corner of st. Johns church road & St Johns road (naga theater rd). This was before there were median barricades on this stretch. I was turning right from a faintly painted median line and the police called the traffic behind me to come along the wrong side. Since there is a slight offset to the right at the junction, the straight moving traffic rudely cut you off from turning right into the Naga theater road.
I stuck to my guns to turn from the median & was hit by a military vehicle coming on the wrong side. My tail lights lay shattered and the cops came rushing at me bad mouthing my driving skills. I got out calmly and ask him to show who was on the wrong side. He realized his mistake and left me with the truck driver to sort out. I walked away but after giving the cop some gyan on putting dividers and not letting people go the wrong way. He mentioned clearly that his job was to keep traffic moving "come what may" and traffic rules dont help him do that.
Today there is a hard divider on the median at that junction preventing the cops from taking the shortcuts I dont see how the "inconvinient" concrete median has caused his job to be more harder, only going to prove that the impression of short cuts helping clear traffic is not only fallacious but dangerous as well. In fact there is no cop now at the junction most time because the median has prevented the oncoming traffic from blocking the road & causing chaos. I can bet there are a lot less accidents at that junction now. The rest of st johns church road is still chaotic where there are no hard medians.
But the intent from traffic police even at the top is very clear - to keep traffic in Bangalore moving and not have long backups "come what may". The impression to the general public is that these conviniences & violations are actually helping them go faster and so police oblige. Police do not explicitly condone these shortcuts but will admit in private that "come what may" includes shortcuts where possible. Saaku?
PS: I am proud to say I do not take these short cuts on the wrong side, even if the cops invite me, allowing the rest to drive to their deathbed by risking a few seconds of crossing time.
TM - Nice Dwg & Idea
Only one problem -- bus users will try to avoid the skywalk for crossing the street, & for this, barricades are the only option.
bus users will try to avoid
bus users will try to avoid the skywalk for crossing the street
There is a box under the overpass to cross the road. If the island bus stop had a footpath till there it can be used. Trying to draw this to demonstrate the footpath to walkway & nl.srinivas pull away bus lane
Magic box - okay
IDS - OK, very clear now (TM suggested an addnl skywalk). Is the magic box also used for vehicles, & if so, is it wide enough to have sidewalks ? A pedestrian level-crossing will still be required to cross to the left. If there is too much left turning traffic, can traffic calming alone take care ?
Is the magic box also used
Is the magic box also used for vehicles
No this is a seperate one for peds alone. The box for palace cross rd vehicles is further ahead, the diagram is not to scale. My bad drawing.
Scratch the skywalk
TM suggested an addnl skywalk...
Forgot about that ped walkway under the overpass! That should work just fine...but...it might involve moving that southbound bus-stop further south (red marker) and providing a unbroken walkway to the ped underpass (blue line).
The twist in the tale will be when palace grounds land from gayathri vihar entrance (near mekhri circle) to Cauvery jn will be used to create more lanes with trees in the middle.
How many lanes do they plan to widen it to..10?! Which still might be ok if they use some as frontage roads on the northbound lanes. Hope it also gives BBMP a chance to revisit the biggest faux-pas on that stretch (aka Cauvery underpass) and upgrade it to a trumpet interchange.
----
TM
awesome!
Came on this post to post some pictures (have a few from my commute, haven't had time to upload pics), but this thread has already grown to solutions!
IDS, Bheema - owe it to you to build a photo blog like feature so that the excellent APAD idea can be resume.
APAD - 13/Dec/10 - Blind followers
Notice how the white maruti 800 in the side view mirror has formed a new lane straddling the lane marker. The rest of the cars behind him are too close to realize he is in violation and form a long line of vehicles causing chaos. FIrst this wouldnt be possible if the lane was a tight 3.3 meters. Nevertheless this happens if you are too close you cant see markings & have to trust the car in front. View the tyre on tarmac video here. OTOH the lane forming behind me is legal and does not cause chaos because they trusted a DDC member ;) This is the effect of a few people learning the rules & driving properly your behaviour can cause cascading effects
This is a major issue
This is reality on ground. The basic principle again is same : Squeeze wherever there is some space and tailgate front vehicle where ever possible. I am everyone has seen funny scenario where a scorpio is trying to tailgate an auto :) Auto got a space to squeeze, but not allowing scorpio to squeeze, but drivers are still "hopeful" to squeeze, as driver is sure others will "inch".
Nice catch. It really educative, if some one wants to learn !
APAD as education
your behaviour can cause cascading effects ---- really educative, if some one wants to learn
So very true !
Blind Followers...
...What a perfect word ! This is first bad experience I had when started practising lane driving in Bangalore. Hence on the 4th idea was conceived in DDC project. The idea is to pledged DDC members to indirectly influence the traffic alignment in signals and on road.
I imagined a picture if DDC members are infiltrated (bad word???) in traffic, how would it look like? See my rough drawing here. This picture shows how other vehicles will get aligned unknowingly to right lane.
End Note: I forgot to draw road direction, so take it as from left to right movement :)
Effect of pleadge
Since the time I took the pledge and watched the videos few days, I have noticed a significant shift in my driving behaviour. I have now counted the number of time I have honked to get someone out of my way i.e. a slower moving vehicle in front of me, practically to a zero. My word to myself, which is what the pledge is, works in a magical way.
I have also noticed that I now slow down as I approach a traffic signal whereas the behavior earlier was to speed up, in the hope of crossing the signal before it turned from Green to Orange.
So guys, thanks for creating the pledge. I am sure it will have a significant impact on people who sign up and then act as role models for others.
A suggestion, if I may, please make the pledge simple. In its current form, it is too wordy. A simple rule of communication is that it be short , simple and as direct as follows. A sample which I have noted down that worked for me ( in the last few days )
I know that the change begins with me. Before I ask and expect others to change, I will be a disciplined driver.
1. I promise to not use the horn unless absolutely necessary
2. I promise not to do zigzag driving and stick to my lane, even at the cost of being few minutes late
3. I promise to slow down while approaching a traffic signal, even if it is green
4. I will never cross the line before zebra crossing, while at a signal
5. I will respect the right of pedestrians crossing at a zebra crossing, by stopping completely, if required.
6. I promise to drive within the specified speed limits, even if the road is vacant ( empty, free...)
I am a proud " Disciplined Driver, a role model for others"
Cheers
Sunil Arora
APAD 14/Dec/2010 - Zebra Crossing Violation
Another set of drivers who disrupt lane discipline by a) breaching zebra line and b) laying a new wrongly aligned lane.
Also I have noted in few signals Zebra Crossing marked in very unscientific way , so people never use it. So drivers are tempted, forced to stop vehicle on it. Example : Hosa Road Signal in Hosur Road. See second image
Wrong marking shown, see red arrow
APAD - 13/12/2010 - Drive in the middle of the road...
I had clicked this pic for my other post.....here you have no option but to drive in the middle of the road......!!!!
after working in the UK for sometime i tried this experiment driving in a lane for sometime,but soon realised that i was being overtaken by everyone in a hapazard way and had to quit it soon. ........ but have learnt to drive safely and in a disciplined way, honk when really required.....not sure if i follow the lane discipline.... ;)
Will give it a try again and see how it goes........!!!
APAD 15/Dec/2010 - Spot the violation/violator contest
Although there are many people violating the traffic rules and/or common sense, the one that prompted me to put the picture here is the BMTC bus driver blocking the junction! I have tried to depict the traffic situation in the picture below.
There was a truck breakdown on the road, which slowed down Flow1. There was a traffic pile up, which reached the smaller junction. The traffic police stoped the flow1 for sometime to make way for flow4 (vehicles from smaller junction) to enter the main road. But a few vehiclesdidnt obey the traffic warden, and came forward to block that junction. Now, flow4 blocks flow3 on the main road. And flow4 would move only if flow1 moves.
Flow3 was now blocked upto the photographed junction. The signal is green for the BMTC bus. But, I wish he had stopped to allow flow2 to move rather than moving into the junction while he had no space to move forward. Now that the bus moved forward, the right turn traffic at the photographed junction is blocked. Because of which flow1 slowed down further!
That was a perfect gridlock situation, which didnt solve, from the 20 minutes I took to move from the smaller junction to my office (less than 500m), climbed up 5 floors by the stairs, and photographed the mess, inspite of some 5-10 traffic wardens + volunteers from security in nearby office trying to unravel the gridlock.
The bmtc bus driver is not the only one who didnt use common sense!
I guess this is the perfect example of prisoners dilemma(ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_dilemma ) , which we see on the bangalore roads every day. Every one chooses a selfish strategy to move ahead, while hurting everyone on the road, including oneself.
APAD 15/Dec/2010 - Bus driver covering 2 lanes
This above photo is the view from my rear view mirror at ejipura signal when coming from the domlur flyover, showing how the yellow bus is standing covering the 2 lanes, i should say, standing on the 2 lanes and hence no other traffic can come from its right too, not even the right turning traffic. The cascading effect is seen in the image above as well as see the below image where I have taken from the front windshield.
Now, to make it more worse, this bus didn't take the right turn also, it went staight, now think, how much space had got wasted because of that bus.
Blr sans tow trucks!
As I have said many times before..we have an aging fleet of vehicles on road and breakdowns are very common..not difficult to imagine how they get their FC's
All that is needed is tow trucks..as in the case depicted by Anitha Sunil above..the junction is near Hoodi power station..all that was needed is to get a tow truck to the spot and remove the bottleneck..
yes of course there is a bigger problem of people driving attitude..but tow trucks are in dire need in this city!!
I had bad experience today, should have taken photo.
I had a bad experience when I was going on my two wheeler parallely with an auto on a two lane road inside peaceful locality, an errant driver in Maruti Alto ,with 2 kids was driving rashly on the wrong side to overtake us. When both me and auto guy were maintaining our own pace, he suddenly turned left from extreme right after overtaking both of us on the wrong side blocking the way. Both me and auto had to apply sudden brakes. I lost my nerves, I had to goto hospital and didn't wanted to have confrontation with the Alto driver.
He had 2 small kids one of around 3 yrs and another less than 5 years in the front of the car with no one holding them nor tied up with seat belt and this guy driving so rashly on the wrong side.
I noted down the number and tried to call 103. Either it is engage or no one picks.
People have gone crazy after buying cars. I see many of our relatives who used to be so nervous 2 wheeler drivers, not even going past 40, drive so rashly in cars since they think they are safer within cars.
SmilingDrivers : Making roads friendlier!
www.smilingdrivers.org/
Came across this website which seems to be promoting the same cause and seems to have done a bit to encourage safe and happy driving .
Interesting reading.
Regards,
Imran.
APAD - 16/Dec/10 - Right way, good !
In this case, auto driver has positioned correctly. Hence creating no confusion and clear formation. Note auto driver has not crossed zebra lines. Not squeezed just because there is space left and right to him. Even BMTC bus has aligned properly. This was first rare scene of discipline. Location: below silkboard fly-over.
Reward the Good Auto Driver
Keep a Chocolate or an Eclair and if the traffic conditions permit, give it to the good auto drivers. I did this yesterday. Broad smile on his face was worth getting down from my car in the middle of the road ( traffic was stationery )!
Cheers
Sunil
APAD 17/Dec/2010 - Do not block intersection
Taken @ coffee board jn. Notice the green has changed to red and the cross traffic is now blocked. The innova to the right of the frame honked me from behind and on seeing me stick to my guns behind the ped xing overtook me and got stuck in the intersection blocking the traffic & pedestrians to boot. Impatience and selfishness is the bane of our traffic mess
APAD 22/Dec/2010 - Do not block ped xing
APAD - On the median / On the wrong side of median
They give scant regard to pedestrians waiting to cross! Even if there is someone waiting on the median to cross, the expectation seems to be that the vehicles can continue on the median, while the pedestrains step back to other lane!
APAD Pedestrians on the road, even when there is a good footpath
People usually complain about the footpaths being at different levels, or not wide enough, presence of bus stops etc as an excuse for not using them. But this particular footpath is well laid. There are few trees, but even then, it is wide enough that u can easily go around the Trees. There are no bus stops on the way.
But, even then, you dont see manby people using them!
APAD - 27/12/2010 - Its my turn says Hoysala !
See how a Hoysala Bangalore Traffic Police Patrol Vehicle is stopped across a road. This vehicle blocked 50% of road, in other words left lane is totally occupied. Not sure what is the reason by stopping in such a position. I am not commenting on it. The location is Garvebhavipalya signal. Picture taken from Garvebhavipalya Road, very narrow road. If half road blocked, its standstill there.
Height of indiscipline - Murder for a scratch
There was a murder today afternoon in Delhi for scratching of a car.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Jet-Airways-pilot-runs-over-restaurant-manager-for-scratching-his-car/articleshow/7261043.cms
There was a murder in Bangalore recently on the newly opened Tumkur Elevated highway when a car driver was stabbed by triple riding bikers since the car rammed into bike from back. It was not taken seriously by Bangalore Police, whereas Delhi incident is highlighted in each and every media.
APAD <17/01/2011> Buses stopping in the middle of the road
now, a page for these wonderful pics
check the ddc project page, and also http://praja.in/ddc/apad. As long as a comment subject starts with APAD (in caps) and has an image inside, it should show up at those two places.
Time for more ppl to join the APAD gang. Upload pics here or at flickr, it isn't as hard as it may seem :)
APAD <25/01/2011> Lane driving, but wrong :)
Location Koramangala. in Kripanidhi College signal. Vehicle is entering from 4th block side. Time approx 8.45am.
No need to mention, there was chaos and traffic jam for 7 mins.
Photos from Sarjapur Signal Bus stop on Outer Ring Road
See where the passengers are waiting for the bus. They have taken up the entire first lane, and covered the second one too....
Now where can the buses stop? On the third lane, blocking the traffic completely!
I think, I will open a new thread about BMTC bus irregularities
I will open up another fresh thread to note all such scenes all across the bangalore and then somehow will show up to BMTC officials, that how are they training their drivers? and at the same time will show up to Police officials that why enforcement is needed to lessen the traffic jam before jump on to road widening or cutting the trees.
Anitha,
Very true and these are just the very basic problems in the roads, the very basic fixes are also available, if we can see them and solve them, we don't need to cut the trees and widen the road always to unblock the traffic jams.
Buses not stopping at bus stops or standing in 2nd or 3rd lane, ( not completely buses' fault, its also the people waiting for buses), but the main thing here is .. nobody fears anything, nobody fears of police or even they don't fear about their life and they are throwing their life in danger by standing at middle of the road. That's where I say we need a lot of enforcement, we are still uneducated or illiterate people who can't understand where to stand and where to wait or respect others or how to drive and where to stop? We deserve to be played upon by the authorities with a stick in hand. We deserve that. Someone should be standing there with a stick in hand and making sure that people stand on the footpath or bus-stops and then buses also stop where they should, without blocking other vehicle's way.
To worsen the problem, many times, at such scenes, you would another bus will come from behind and try to overtake this bus standing between 2nd and 3rd lane and eat up all the three lanes by standing 45 degrees on the road, and it will take a hell lot of time to clear such kind of mess on road.
Deepak
Sarjapur Road junction
The real fault of that Sarjapur road junction is actually the design. Look at the road and its design. I have discussed this here and also on Praja somewhere. This junction is a major interchange point and expected to become more dense. What is the size of the footpath there - did you check it out? The footpath is basically a drain cover slab, 1 m wide. So yes, people will come and stand on the road. Don't blame them.
But taking 2 lanes is not a option right?
I have earlier said the same, that instead of finding an excuse and inventing such kind of convenience is dangerous to those pedestrians only, what we at Praja can do is to find out the problems with the existing design or show up the difference is proposed and implemented design and make the authorities do the needful.
Deepak