Courteous Driving Resolution - will the effort last even till the new year?

Traffic rules in India seem to be against our social norms. My grandsons make me acutely aware of the cultural difference between the west and our environment. They do not let me even start the car till every person has tied his/her seat belt!

A couple of days ago, the 3 year old was complaining after I used the horn a couple of times - "Mommy never uses the horn". I explained to him that the people were driving in the wrong direction on a one way street and I was upset by them. Yesterday also I used the horn on the same road, which is narrow and very steep.

Today, he and his 5 year old brother were playing and I heard them blow horns and say, "What are you doing? You are on the wrong side!".

I decided that I must start practicing courteous driving, whenever it is "safe" :)

I let people merge or turn at least half a dozen times today. The only minor fear occurred when I let some pedestrians cross. Just as I started, a man ran in front of me. Fortunately, I could stop in time but it gave me a scare.

The courteous driving did not delay me at all as the brief delay hardly mattered given the flow of the traffic.

I, though, still have to retain my composure when a two lane road merging into a single lane for a bridge turns into a 3 lane road. I become a bit aggressive and try to prevent the 3rd lane from merging.

It seems obvious that the optimum solution is that alternate vehicles from the two lanes move into the single lane. Yet we don't do it. Each person from the, now three lanes, tries to squeeze in. Why - even I find myself doing it for fear that I will be stuck and people behind me will blow the horn :(

Need to practice meditation at least on such occasions :(

Wealth, Quality of LIfe and Paradise Lost

I was pretty sure that I would retire in Goa. I loved the place. I like the greenery and the beaches. I like the small towns and villages with the comfort of a modern life.

Now somehow Bob Dylan's Things Have Changed resonates. The road in front of my flat now hums with traffic and it is bound to get worse. Taxi services are aimed at tourists who have no other options. With such conflicts, there is little chance of Ola or Uber like services.

If one way taxis from home to point of destination were easily available at reasonable costs, I for example would be happy to use them and not own a car. Who wants to search for a parking place near a beach or in the town?

I can't imagine roads being cleared of parked vehicles anytime soon. We don't need more roads but using the roads more effectively. That too is not going to happen.

I don't see any efforts on changing the mindset of the people. We should expect polite and courteous behaviour on the roads. Discourtesy should be the exception and not the other way around. Try showing courtesy to pedestrians and observe their nervousness!

I don't see any chance of cars being stopped and parked outside the coastal villages. We should move around the beach area by walking or using small electric vehicles like golf carts.

I can expect that we will widen the roads, create new roads. We will not create a society where people do not need to move around so much or need personal vehicles.  We will not be able to manage well with what we have. Growth is the modern mantra :(

In short, Goa is no longer an obvious choice for retirement. The cold and the heat of Chandigarh no longer seems so bad. I can walk to rose garden.

India should stop building roads and spend on autonomous transport

The surprising message for me after hearing this talk Keynote - AltCars Expo was the great reduction in the road space needed.

Assuming that this technology enables us to have a far better movement of traffic with the existing road infrastructure, we in India should be actively pursuing this future rather than building ever more roads. Can we make it work in India?

The cost of NOT doing it is visible in the example of Delhi:

I recall having a sore throat on every trip I took to Delhi by the time I reached my office from the airport. This was on trips to  Delhi prior to the introduction of CNG. The experience after that (2002 onward?) was far better  for some years. Meanwhile, Delhi built more roads, more flyovers, and even a metro, but the net result is that it has achieved the status of the most polluted city in the world!

How can autonomous vehicles share the road space with the current Indian traffic? It just seems impossible when even in the US, humans tend to hit the autonomous vehicles from the rear.

We should start with autonomous public transport, both buses and taxis, and create a legal framework which disciplines the human drivers harshly.

How about legally treating any human driver who hits an autonomous vehicle as attempting suicide. All legal responsibilities of insurance companies would be exactly the same as in the case of a suicide.

We can experiment with such a law today with riders on motor bikes  who are not wearing a helmet. I am pretty sure it will introduce social pressures and modify the behaviour of the riders. It may even help create a market for air-cooled helmets.

Driving on a Camel's back - certainly not a solution to any problem

Almost ten years ago, crossing the road at at a college was very hard. It was a highway and traffic moved fast. The solution was obviously to slow down the traffic and what better way than a pair of speed breakers.

The net result - the traffic became slower but was it easier to cross the road. Of course not! As speeds went for 50KM/hr to 10KM/hr, the gap between the cars became one fifth. Now, there was a stream of cars - none of which were willing to stop voluntarily and let the students pass. If you took the risk of crossing partway, there was still the problem of negotiating the remaining half of the road.

It should be obvious that speed breakers are useful for low traffic scenarios and not a high traffic one. However, these are the solutions applied when the traffic flow becomes high.

I recently drove to Calangute from Mapusa and it was like driving on a Camel's back. The number and frequency of speed breakers is remarkable. I found myself to be far less inclined to show any courtesy when negotiating a speed breaker.

An experiment worth doing: I find that I cross a reasonable distance from a speed breaker. Never close to the speed breaker. Is it me only or is that a common practice?

By contrast, we stop at a stop sign in the US even if there is no traffic. We cross the road without worrying about whether the oncoming car will stop.

 I don't believe that we when in India are a worse people. We have created systems and processes which brings out the worst in us :(

The speed breakers do not encourage a socially desirable behaviour. They increase the irritation and frustration of a driver - especially as each one is designed to be as uncomfortable as possible to ensure that the drivers have no choice but to slow down.

Why not put an effort in to make sure that drivers stop at a stop sign or a pedestrian crossing. Even more so, make sure that the person behind does not honk or overtake from every which way if a person has stopped to show even minimal courtesy to pedestrians.

And once traffic is high, invest in traffic signals and teach people to stop even if the signal is not for vehicular traffic but for pedestrians.

Getting Lost on the Highway - Again!

After the previous experience of getting lost, we were far better prepared. I had looked at the maps, estimated the times, noted the small town names to make sure that we did not take the wrong path.

Our problems were compounded by a poor choice the data network supplier. I had incorrectly assumed that one supplier would be a reliable alternate and backup in the interiors. I had also not realised how expensive data usage with maps is if you are roaming on a 'partner' network. Our balance in the prepaid account had been exhausted even before we found our hotel in Jaipur.

Maps mention routes by the highway numbers - even paper ones if one find one these days. Often there are multiple numbers for the same highway, especially the state highways. However, I don't recall seeing many highway signs with highway numbers. Certainly not at the junctions. Why is that so hard? May be as a programmer, a simple code as a key is the obvious first choice and I can't see the administrative and decision taking complexities involved :)

My preparation helped. We were on our way from Udaipur to Anand. About midway, there was a turning for a highway to Vadodra bypassing Ahmedabad. The road was 'straight' after that.

When expected, there was a turning. However, all the signage mentioned was - 'Modasa'. There was no mention of Vadodra. Obviously, there was no mention the state highway number. Because of my planning, I knew 'Modasa' was on the correct route! So, we took the turning and were pleasantly surprised by an excellent highway. Once we got on it, we knew it was headed towards Godhra and Vadodra!

I didn't realise it but somewhere the highway turned! The road was excellent and we knew we were moving fast in the right direction. And then the realisation came. There was a small sign which indicated that we were still on state highway number 5! In the absence of data connection, we relied on the good old network of asking people. Their directions were remarkably clear and precise.

We kept asking for directions at suspicious crossings. In a small town, even a slightly wider road may be the highway you want. We reached an hour later than expected but enjoyed the experience of asking for directions. Especially, just near the end.

One person was very confident and asking us to turn in the direction from which we had come! Fortunately, the shop owner knew better and gave us the correct details. As we moved, we could hear him still explaining to the enthusiastic, helpful by-stander!

I hope someone in the highway planning department wakes up and realises that putting highway number of exit signs does not require much space and may even help his family and friends one day :)

Getting Lost on the Highway

After a 2400 Km drive spread over 8 days, I can say that the road travel in India has become far simpler and safer with divided highways.

On the highways (NOT in the towns we passed through), driving shows greater discipline and courtesy than I would have expected. But one has to accept that it is perfectly safe, or even safer, to overtake from the wrong side:) The driver should just accept it and not feel any guilt for violating the road laws - no policeman in India is likely to give a ticket for it.

I got lost once but it was my own stupidity. After Jaipur, the next convenient halt was Bhilwara. I got on the road to Ajmer. I was pretty sure I was on the right route - it was going to Udaipur and the route I had selected, thanks to Google maps, was the shortest/best route to Udaipur from Jaipur. After a while, I noticed signs indicating the distance to Beawar - it seemed a little nearer than I had expected Bhilwara to be.

My mind had made a discovery - given the fondness of our politicians to change names, Bhilwara's name must have been changed to Beawar. I was so convinced about this discovery that I did not think it worthwhile to stop and confirm it. I had not noticed any major turning, so this route had to be right.

On reaching Beawar, I tried to find the hotel, only to discover to my embarrassment that I was a 100Km from where I was supposed to be. A state highway connected the two - it was narrow, often very rough road, occupied frequently by goats.

I had missed a turning - there was a sign for going to Shrinager. But how was I to know that it was not an exit to a small town but a exit to a highway?

A lesson learnt!

Road to Simla - thoughtless design

Last week, we took a road trip to Simla. I did not enjoy the scenery on the route. The driver had been told in advance to be conservative. He was. However, my mind was pre-occupied by trying to estimate whether it was safe to overtake.

It is my belief that at no point after the two lane highway started was it ever safe to overtake. Each time a vehicle overtakes another it depends on the following three to varying degrees:

• Ability to fall back to one's lane in case needed
• Faith that the other driver will be considerate
• Plain and simple luck

What did the highway planners expect? Consider an example of speed limits:

• Cars 40 KM/hour
• Trucks and buses 25 KM/hour

Unless the traffic is remarkably low, especially of heavy vehicles, it is obvious that there will soon be a convoy of vehicles. Even if we assume that the trucks and buses will not be overtaking each other (I know it is a ludicrous assumption), car drivers will get impatient. The longer a convoy gets, the riskier the overtaking becomes and, worse, more impatient the drivers get.

 

If there cannot be a well defined 3rd lane for safe overtaking at reasonable intervals(separate locations for uphill and downhill traffic), why not enforce movement of convoys of trucks at fixed time slot with no higher speed limit for cars.

 

Roundabouts in Chandigarh

The following statement in "Like parliamentary democracy, roundabouts are a great British export with a risk" struck a chord:

Yet roundabouts tend to work only when motorists observe the British virtues of fair play and stick to the rules. Alas, this is not always the case.

I will never forget the policeman scolding me for not barging in to the traffic at a roundabout. I waited as I did not wish to create a deadlock by blocking traffic in the circle which needed to exit the roundabout.

The policeman may have been right. I may never have been able to enter the roundabout but by shoving and being rude :(

Update: The surprising pleasure of not being rude

I stopped at a pedestrian crossing. I had to request the pedestrians to continue walking as they had stopped in the middle of the road upon noticing my car.

I am surprised at how nice it felt. However, there was no car behind me. How often can I expect that?

Grim reminder of why I stopped commuting and quit teaching

The news about an accident in Kharar between a school bus and a private bus was a painful reminder of my rationale for not continuing to teach a course at IIT, Ropar. This was the route on which I drove :(

I had forgotten the number of times the private buses had terrified me. I was beginning to feel that perhaps I should not have stopped as I find myself not exploring as much of software as I used to.

I wish there were a way to nudge drivers into acceptable and socially responsible behaviour as Stockholm did in handling traffic congestion.

HIt and run - What about the victims?

I seem to have become more conscious of the plight of victims after watching documentaries on this topic on TV5 Monde. This line stared at me: "the family of one of the injured children may have to sell their hut in a slum to raise money for their daughter's surgery" in a story about hit and run.

I wish the focus would change from "whom to punish" to "how to help".

Shouldn't the society mandate free immediate treatment for victims. The hospitals should recover money from insurance companies or the government in case no insurance claim is possible.

Government being the default payer would appear to be fair as it is an obvious failure of governance if the car cannot be located or was being driven without insurance.

Even in India, a timer for Green light may be hazardous

A timer for green signal may be hazardous in India as well. Yesterday's headline in the Chandigarh news - One killed as truck driver steps on the gas to cross traffic light.

It appears that the driver stepped on gas as he noticed only five seconds were left for the timer. He did not beat the signal but managed to hit "three cars, 2 two-wheelers, and two people on a cycle".

There is an alternate version of the truth:   Truck driver goes on the rampage. 

In this case, the driver managed to "hit a cyclist, a motorcycle, five cars (two on the opposite side of the divider) and an Activa scooter."

I suppose it is close enough except that the crucial bit about speeding up to beat the signal was missing :

The driver of the truck told the police that the brakes of the truck failed. However, eyewitnesses said the driver was drunk and was driving recklessly.

I prefer the former version of the truth as it confirms what I expect to happen.

A Unique Way to See Off Relations/Friends/Guests

In the high speed lane of the highway, a car was stalled. The warning lights were on. As I approached nearer, I could see a couple with folded hands(Namaste). An older couple, at least middle age if not more,  was climbing over the divider of the highway!

What a way to drop guests at a convenient location!

At 80KM/hr, I could not see more. I wonder if the old couple sprinted across the remaining half of the highway :)

User Pays - Pay Toll or Pay a Decongestion Charge

The drama about the toll road in Delhi-Gurgaon is very amusing (Fortunately, I do not have to travel on it). However, I do spend Rs. 74 for each trip on toll to Ropar at two toll booths, which is about 15% of the cost of petrol.

Curiously, 15% of the travel time is about the minimum time I spend at the toll booths. The travel time is 15 minutes from the first toll gate to the IIT Campus. The usual 2 minutes at the toll booths does occasionally stretch to 10 minutes.

Wouldn't it be better if 10% or even 15% was added to the fuel price and used as 'road usage charges'? I would definitely welcome it and I am sure that people will get used to it fairly quickly.

Money collected does not have to be used only for highways and roads. A fair proportion of it could and should be used to subsidize public transport. It can make sure that public transport is available on routes and at frequencies which may seem uneconomical but which would encourage people to have the option of using public transport instead of own transport.

If the use of public transport usage increases, we can rename the 'road usage charge' to a very welcome 'road de-congestion charge'!

Safer roads by people who just want them to be safe

There were two news items recently which triggered some thoughts - nothing unusual in the news items.

1. The drive to issue traffic violation challans was effective and police collected x amount of money in traffic fines.
2. The second item was that there was a shortage of policemen to monitor traffic.

Until the internet made it easy to share software, we were at the mercy of the intermediaries. In fact, it took quite some time for many of us to accept that the intermediaries were not needed, at least as far as distribution of software was concerned.

Many people are probably still not convinced. "You get what you pay for" is an ideology marketed in our brain and it is hard to unlearn it or even question it.

If the speed limits are reasonable, most of the people do not want to speed or violate traffic rules. Can we create an infrastructure which makes it possible for us to volunteer to improve traffic flow? One long term solution is self driven cars, the likelihood of it making an impact in India is minimal in the next few decades.

My observation is that if the traffic is moving at a steady pace, the need for overtaking reduces. So, what if every minute, a car was moving at the speed limit? Would we be tempted to overtake the car or would we get used to the idea of driving within speed limit.

The intention has to be to change the mindset of people - not fine them and hope that they learn. (I have come across people who bragged about bribing and getting away with traffic violations but rarely anyone who acknowledged being caught and paid a fine.)

So as a start, on dangerous highways, police could encourage a car every minute to carry a gps device which will monitor his/her speed and encourage them to stay within speed limits. If an incentive seems to be needed, it could be reduced toll on a toll road. The fact that these cars are being monitored would, over time, ensure that the drivers behind them are less likely to get impatient. And if we are lucky, that becomes their default behavior.

I wish I could try it out as a NetLogo model :)

Traffic lights - timer is useful but may be not for green light

Roy Sutherland gives an example of traffic lights in Perspective is Everything. In Korea, there is a timing indication on red light only and it works to reduce accidents. In China, there is timing indication on both red and green lights and it doesn't improve accident rate - it may even be worse.

Chandigarh uses the 'Chinese' model. I wonder if its effectiveness was ever tested.

It is pretty obvious that knowing how long one has to wait helps cope with waiting. Uncertainty is disturbing.

In the case of a green light, there are conflicting goals. If the traffic is light and a driver knows how long the green light will remain on, he may speed up to reach the junction before the signal changes. On the other hand, knowing that there is not enough time may help us to stop in time before the zebra crossing.

In the case of the green light, it would be enough and, probably, safer if we get information that the light is about to change and nothing more than that. This signal should be obvious.

So, it might be better to have the timer only for red signal. For green signal, it may be useful to have amber light on about 5 seconds or less before the green light goes off, letting the driver know that it is time to slow down and stop.

A heuristic algorithm for safer driving

The scariest moments in driving have been during overtaking. Normally, it is when someone is overtaking from the opposite direction but it also happens when someone is overtaking me and finds oncoming traffic. Unfortunately, at times, I am also guilty of it. After each such occasion, I make every effort to update my rule set of when not to overtake.

Anyway, my algorithm is that I must drive in a manner and speed by which the total number of overtakes is minimized - that is whether I am overtaking or someone else is overtaking me.

The next rule I found is that if I stick to official speed limit, almost every car and many trucks will be overtaking me. This is clearly dangerous.

Traffic seems to be clustered around certain speeds. The best option for me is to drive in the tail of the high speed cluster. This seems to minimize the number of additional vehicles I need to overtake and seems to minimize the number of vehicles trying to overtake me especially since the vehicles behind me do not lose patience, which they would do if they perceive that I am traveling far too slowly for their taste.

Complexity issue? - Deadlock at a crossroads.

I made the mistake of showing a little courtesy to the car which had taken half a turn to complete it. This would have cleared my lane so I would not have to abruptly risk switching lanes to go around that car.

Another car noticed that I had stopped and rushed to take the empty space. Now, no one could move at the crossroads - each car was being blocked by another!

For once, I was calm and amused. It was my passenger who got very upset. Anyway, a minute or more later, a police man came around. Forced the idiot to back up and cleared my lane. I am surprised at how often such deadlocks occur - can't people reason about the implications of their actions? Is it that complex?

If the turning is so bad, I would have just taken a left and taken a U-turn around a large circle. It might have added a kilometer to the distance but should have been faster. Is the cost of driving one kilometer so high that few seem to do it?

Be Somewhat Safer, Break the Law

 The following extract from "Be Safe, Break the Law" definitely resonates with my experience of driving in India:

Higher speed limits are often safer because what is worse than speed is variable speed, some people driving fast and some driving slow. When the speed limit is set too low you get lots of people who safely break the law and a few law-abiders who make the roads more dangerous.

I find myself driving faster in order to be consistent with what others are doing. The tendency of impatient drivers to overtake dangerously increases sharply the slower one is driving.

The difference for India though is that our traffic is inherently variable. A slow truck or a tractor is tolerated, though with minimal patience, as the slow speed is expected from them and they are too big to squeeze through on a two lane highway with oncoming traffic.

However, a modern car going too slow - Nah!

Incredibly Stupid Parents

It was bad enough that the car was driving in two lanes. Usually, half in each lane but sometimes in the fast lane.

When I came closer, I noticed that someone in the car would hold a baby outside the car window.  The baby must have been enjoying the breeze at 70 Km/hr. The baby was held outside the car several times before I managed to overtake them.

I was horrified at the possibilities which could ruin the family's fun.

Keeping Road Rage Under Control

I try not to forget this story and keep calm.

Yesterday, I saw a policeman try to stop a vehicle ignoring a signal. The driver just sped away. The policeman walked away helplessly.

This morning, an idiot parked his two wheeler in such a strange way in the middle of the road that I had a hard time taking out my car and not hitting the motorcycle. The parking lot was virtually empty. If someone had parked next to me, I would have had to honk and get one of the two to come make space for me. Absurd.

Why did that idiot park in this manner? It is beyond me.