Vasanth Dharmaraj’s Blog

There have been a lot of posts about how bad the Bangalore traffic is and how the bad and deteriorating road infrastructure is responsible for this. But one major factor is seldom mentioned. It is the human touch.

Here is the problem. Most drivers/riders in Bangalore do not have a traffic sense, do not know the traffic rules and do not give a damn about others. They think they are the king of the road. They are also highly impatient and arrogant with a huge ego.

Now the above statement may sound very harsh but I can find no other explanation for the way people behave on the roads. Here is a small subset of things that you can see on Bangalore roads:

•    People change lanes at will. They do not bother who is behind or alongside them. It is the other person’s responsibility to take evasive action.
•    In two lane roads people drive with their vehicles occupying half of either lane. This way they can prevent anyone from overtaking them on either lanes or switch to which ever lane is faster easily.
•    No one seems to stop after the green light turns red at signals. If you want to stop when the light turns read, do so at your own risk. There is a high possibility that the vehicle behind you will ram right into you!
•    People can turn to any direction at will. I have seen a lot of vehicles especially busses turn left from the right most lanes or vice versa.
•    Turn indicators are just an unnecessary accessory. People use if for fun. They turn on the right indicator to turn left and are amused at the reaction of others.
•    People do not respect the one way signs on roads. They travel in either direction.
•    Normally vehicles should keep left in India. But this does not apply to Bangalore. People travel on the right too especially if there is a median on the road and they join the road in the opposite direction.  There will not be bothered to move in the right direction and take a U turn.
•    Nobody knows what “Give way” or “Stop and Go” means. Nobody cares who has the right of way in an intersection. It is the meanest or one with the biggest who gets the right of way.
•    People can not move is a straight line and at a constant speed. They like to keep moving sideways and accelerate and decelerate constantly.

Like I said this is just a small set of crazy things you can see on Bangalore roads. And it is not that a small portion of the drivers/riders are behaved this way. It is the majority! And I see these things happen daily in my commute to office.

I do not know how the other places in India are, but Bangalore and Chennai are two cities I have lived in. Both are just as bad. I do not see this changing even if the road infrastructure improves drastically.

Why are people like this? I do not have a definitive answer. But maybe it is because you can get a license in India very easily. In most places you do not have to write the mandatory written test or do the practical test. For a small bribe you can get a license even without being in the country! The problem is you can not get a license even if you pass both the tests without the bribe. People always choose the easier way and as a result never know or bother about the traffic rules.

Related posts:

1. Improving Bangalore’s traffic situation
2. 10 Point Program for Improvement of Bangalore City Traffic
3. Bangalore traffic jokes
4. Bangalore Traffic Videos Live
5. October rain: More on Bangalore traffic