what do you mean by center median? like a circle?

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We have all the rules and regulations in place but its the implementation thats lacking. I agree that hidden cameras et al can be used to track and penalise violaters.

I wrote a pice earlier on how this can be done with no cost to Government here. Do you think it would work?

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This insurance thing is very interesting. can you elaborate on this? how about pedestrians and cyclists? do all vehicles have insurance? how about vehicles from different states? So you are saying implement a no-fault system. no takrar. no on road discussion. note down each others numbers, get a police report, go to insurance company. settle it off the road. Time & again these points are coming up, random driving behaviors, lack of discipline, lack of enforcement. I have observed that even in the best trained/disciplined/enforced systems when the traffic density is high, basically chaos creeps in. there are different people driving in different states of mind. and there is no way to control that. plus in big cities people are strangers and are in a hurry to go where they are going... always, even if it is to a movie. So I guess as long as you have individuals driving you cannot escape this. But,as you say, it is important to get some basic things right: honest, test based, unbribed testing for licensing & honest, un bribed enforcement of traffic laws. Finally, some aspects of BTRAC are actually very important as Bangalore's traffic grows. like data collection, traffic monitoring etc. for example, with these they can make more informed and smarter decisions about where to make infrastructure interventions and how to make it. if you have solid data then the chances are your design will be better.

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Yes, in US, during accidents, people settle the damages through insurance company. If there is an accident, people take the insurance number of the other party and settle it offsite. Also, immediately cops settle down things. There will be no 'scene' on the Road. Yes, traffic monitoring is very much important - but we do not have the basic things right. Police has to enforce these things first. With BTRAC and hidden cameras, cops should send tickets to the offenders by watching them through monitoring centres with fines for late payments. This should be implemented immediately as a Proof of concept in some roads like MG Road. More emphasis should be given to lane discipline, otherwise only 1 car can pass where space exists for 2 cars. As you said, even in big cities in US like New York, problem exists, but people use public transport extensively and walk in CBDs. Also parking charges are expensive in big cities and charged hourly.

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well all your points are valid, but last but not the least, point number 9. should be our pathetic traffic management system! - Our traffic rules are decades old and not at all explained properly. - No one understands the traffic rules properly, not even the cops, else how can Lane discipline - do not overtake from left coexist? - Lanes are not even marked properly. - on many major roads, the width of the road keeps varying from 1 lane to 3 lanes and back within a span of 200m. how to explain this? - any junction where 4 roads meet, they put a traffic light with some blind logic as 40 seconds for each road. that makes it atleast 160 seconds wait and 10 such signals in your route, guess what more than 30min just wait at the signal? - cut the junctions, even on ring road, at places there is a junction every 100m. This will just not be solved by constructing flyovers every 100m! There is more to this, but in Bangalore there are quite a few organizations who have their engineers working 24x7 to maintain traffic for some London, Ney York, Seattle, but to manage our own city's traffic no one is used! Pity... Chaitanya

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Chaitanya,

I agree with you on implementation being pathetic. But as far as I know, we have all the necessary rules to control traffic if the cops wish to do so. But its obvious that they do not implement the rules and penalties. Ever wondered why?

I guess the reasons are

• They are really understaffed
• Implementation means more work and like all govt departments they are, to put it mildly, lazy.
• Most cops are not well educated and sense of social responsibility is totally lacking.
• Most cops have never seen traffic management systems abroad and they hardly have a clue on how things could be changed for better. Its unfortunate that only politicians get junkits.

That being said, there are a lot of goog officers in the department who understand the need to change and are willing to cause it. Those are the ones praja.in is targeting to coordinate with and improve the situation.

What else do you think are the reasons for bad traffic management?

-Shastri

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excellent post chaitanya. traffic maintenance for those cities done in blr? do share details. that is news to me. if discipline is what we are after, as you said, structure is important. if discipline is what we are after, as you said, structure is important. without any structure, it is unlikely that any discipline would evolve. ofcourse, structure itself can only come by consistent design that is persistent through the city. do write more. please consider registering.

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well i think the point was about consistent rules. rules also need to be intuitive. and these need to be backed up by consistent structure, that is if we break them, then we should automatically feel that something is wrong, without a mama having to blow his whistle. for example, if you say left turn from left lane only, then a left turn from right lane should be so awkward to maneuver that i should realize that was wrong. well a rule that does not consider constraints, including those of implementation, is useless no? what good is a rule which has no authority? we need one rule that says traffic rules must be enforced :)

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I have checked some RTO sites and other places and have even read in papers that our traffic system is outdated by decades. It has certain rules that are totally irrelevant today. Also I don't agree with Traffic Police being understaffed! Basically I came to the conclusions that I've posted earlier, by looking at a bit of traffic management in US. Do you think they have 1000s of traffic police? No right? Then why do we need it here? Also like someone here said things should be intuitive, the rules well defined so that we follow it ourselves. At times when I travel on the Golden Quadrilateral, to tumkur, it has two lanes very well marked and I have never seen a vehicle no moving in a proper line. In fact most drivers put indicator when changing lanes. Then same drivers when they are in city don't do it. Bottomline, my point is the traffic department is spending (if at all they are) lot on unnecessary things, instead should spend it to getting right people to design the system. Chaitanya

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Hi All,

Excellent posts. As said, our traffic police is the main culprit in the entire system, they will be more involved in finding out who is not carrying insurance and DL and of course most visible to their eyes - Helmets, to make money out of it for their pockets rather than monitoring who is not following rules and regulations.

They do not have any social responsibility. To carry their life they do the duty and nothing else. Entire system is like that. We see traffic inspectors simply sitting on their mobikes.

Lack of discipline is so much that we feel frustated many times. For instance today morning I was taking left turn on my bike to my office on the Bannergatta Road, I am on the left lane and have put indicator and showing left turn by hand sign also, a guy who seems to be an IT guy coming behind me and who wants to go straight on his bike is honking madly and he wants to overtake me from the left and pass me. He is not patient to wait until I turn into my office. After passing me, he himself and the person sitting in his bike is showing hands at me and shouting. I was so frustated, but helpless. This is one such scenario I faced today and faced many times. All of you might have similar scenarios to share. Traffic police who was standing there was just watching. People lack discipline and cops lack responsibility.

As dicussed in the post, cops should be shown videos on how traffic is managed in foreign countries. Our planners and developers should be shown how roads and flyovers are planned, how exits and loops are planned and constructed. Are there any flyovers in the world other than Bangalore where there is a signal. Our Indian planners do not know how to construct loops and exits because of that we end up with signals on flyovers!!.

Traffic system like western countries is like a dream on Indian Roads. Will we be able to make this dream come true ? - Only Government can answer this question. One way to come out of this chaotic traffic for a common man is to have good public transport and people should be forced to use public transport. But, there is very less progress on this front. BRTS, Metro and Mono - Everything on paper, only possible to see after 5-10 years which is basically today's need.

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Hidden somewhere in yesterdays DH epaper i found this... Learner's Licence Renewal Canceled The State Transport department has decided to stop renewal of learner’s licence for riding both twowheelers and four-wheelers with immediate effect. The Transport Commissioner in a release said that the decision has been taken following Union Government amending the Central Motor Vehicle Act, 1989, for this purpose recently. The Centre has also fixed minimum qualification of 8th standard for getting the licence. Hitherto, there was no qualification fixed for obtaining the licence. RTAs and Bangalore One centres have been instructed to immediately stop renewing learners’ licence.However, the new rule will not apply to those who have already got the licence renewed, the release added. However, vehicle riders can apply for fresh LL any number of times. so what purpose does this serve? you cant renew the LL, but can apply for a new one anynumber of times?

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The contender for the worst ride must be from Jayadeva /Bannerghata road to Bommanahalli junction(?) - It takes on an average about 1hr 15 minutes give or take 30 minutes at any point of time -- starting 8.00 am upto 9.00 pm to cover this 4-5 km stretch. How do we take to task the DCP/ACP - Traffic for the absolute chaos that reigns on the roads? Why cant we have a orderly flow of traffic? I know and understand there is an extra-ordinary amount of vehicles on the road - but why is it so poorly managed? Nobody seems to want to follow any rules and there is no disincentive even if you blatantly flout all possible rules. Should we invite Ms. Bedi to this stretch to shame us all? Right in front of the BTM Bus Stand -- there is a blatant encroachment of the footpath by a chicken stall and to top it the road near the hump is in very poor shape for the last 3 years but no repairs whatsover. There is a mushrooming encroachment of the tree lined area behind the BTM Bus Stand but the BBMP top honchos (BTW - i see the BBMP adminstrator's there -- he must be staying in the IAS officer's colony at BTM -- but no action -- despite written and oral complaints to BBMP. And half of madivala lake has disappeared - are some real estate sharks eying this 'erstwhile lake'? I guess the swalpi adjust madi curse is going to bell the death knell of our beloved bengalooru....

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There are a few implementations of the box junctions in blr too..mostly around the MG road..vidhana soudha area..but no one has any clue how to use it..

The only thing that I was aware of was it was  a no stopping zone..but didnt know all this about it! 

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I have been to many countries, but recently i visited japan and i was really surprised to see the peoples were very co-operative towards each other. they allow other cars to pass any intersection,where as we are all in hurry we whenever give way or let others to pass until we pass.... Second thing is on every intersection there is a centre median on four roads ,so vehicles will stop and let others pass and they turn to their cross along the centre median We will have to have patience on roads then we can see that we re accident free city...

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I think raauf is referring to one of these.. Not sure. Just guessing. [flickr-photo:id=2301425798,size=m] -Shastri

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Right turn at intersections (in countries driving on left) is a tricky issue. Japan's way above seems pretty intuitive.

UK uses the system shown below.

(From: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070332) The rule itself reads : Box junctions. These have criss-cross yellow lines painted on the road (see 'Road markings'). You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. However, you may enter the box and wait when you want to turn right, and are only stopped from doing so by oncoming traffic, or by other vehicles waiting to turn right. At signalled roundabouts you MUST NOT enter the box unless you can cross over it completely without stopping.

Basically the vehicles turning to right wait in the central boxed zone to let other vehicles pass before they proceed themselves.

But surely not a good idea for high traffic junctions.

Just mentioning it here to have the information handy and extensive on Praja.

-Shastri

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Is the concept same as what is followed to turn left in USA? USA drives on right side of the road. At intersection or traffic signal, the car intending to take left will wait till all incoming traffic from opposite direction are cleared. USA does not have any box painted as such on the road.

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