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Speed Governor
Vasanth - 22 January, 2008 | Traffic | Bangalore | speed governors | public transport
Speed Governor issue has resulted in strike of trucks and private buses - Are they are the only accident causing vehicles. What about high speed cars, bikes and SUVs? Are they not resulting in any accidents? Joy ride of these vehicles had made our roads deadly dangerous. Problem is day by day the BHPs and CCs of vehicles that are introduced in India are increasing like anything. Bikes are moving from 100cc to 150cc and now 200+ CCs producing more than 13-14 bhps and cars are moving from 800cc to 1,300+ CCs producing in excess of 100bhp. In olden days, there was a strict control in India for the CCs and BHPs of the vehicles launched. M800 producing 35bhp itself was felt very powerful at that time, now it is the least. Yamaha RX100 producing 11bhp was considered very powerful, now most of the bikes in the markets produce that. People in India do not have the discipline to handle these high powered vehicles. They drive recklessly resulting in increased number of accidents mostly which will turn fatal. There should be a restriction to CCs and BHPs for the vehicles that are launched in India rather than enforcing a speed governor later. 800-1300 cc for cars and less than 150cc is enough for the conditions of Indian roads. What's the fun in having a car which reaches 200kmph with no road suitable to reach that speed. SwiftsSafety features of powerful cars should come in non powerful cars also. Nano is thankfully 35bhp and 650cc. Pulsars,Unicorns,Apaches as well as Safaris, Scorpios, Octavias,Optras etc have made our roads deadly dangerous. In earlier days, we didn't had so many powerful vehicles on our road and most of the vehicles were like utility vehicles to reach point B from point A. At that time we had less number of accidents and traffic jams. People could comfortably commute in Luna and TVS XL. Introduction of speed Governors to Buses especially to Volvo buses will lead to increased number of cars on our highways. People will stop using the public vehicle and start driving their own car on highways since the journey time is longer. Volvo buses normally travels at 100kmph which will be governed whereas powerful Cars and SUVs which can zip at 150+ kmph will not have any restrictions. Our Indian trucks, which are less torquey already struggle on our highways to carry the load. Speed governor will make it even more difficult. It is the empty trucks which are driven rashly. Speed checking at regular points with hidden speed cameras is the best way to deal with speed rather than speed Governors. Enforcing strict discipline will govern the speed. There is no speed checking as well as drunken driving testing in any of our highways. How much time it takes to get the speed Governor removed for a truck/bus driver?
COMMENTS
Enforcement is the key
christopher - 24 January, 2008 - 06:22
The idea about fitting speed governors has rightfully faced the flak. Even if they succeed in fixing the speed governors, it is quite easy to tamper with them. The key to controlling fast and rash driving is enforcement. To start with, road types should be identified and categorised as School area, Residential area, Business district, Expressway, State highway, Interstate highway etc. Speed limit should be specified for each area and displayed prominently in each and every road. After this only speed enforcement should be started. While it is another story that BDA is proposing mixed use of land...which means residential areas will be business/commercial places too.
Not an issue of speed
balnu147 - 24 January, 2008 - 14:43
According to me the problem of reckless driving is more to do with the driver than the vehicle.. drivers needs to be punished with fine not the vehicle! There is nothing called a reckless truck but a reckless driver driving a truck.. curb them.. use nook or crook and don't let them off the hook.. things will be peaceful then!
speed governors...
tsubba - 24 January, 2008 - 15:14
so what was this issue about speed governors any one with a short summary.
re: speed governors
balnu147 - 24 January, 2008 - 15:40
Too many people getting killed speeding HTVs.. so govt announced that they have to install speed governors which will restrict speed of HTVs to 50 automatically.. truckers, bus and taxi union dint like the idea and so went on strike..
re: speed governors
tsubba - 24 January, 2008 - 15:45
thanks. so how did the strike end?
Yesh it did! after two days
balnu147 - 24 January, 2008 - 16:03
Yesh it did! after two days of shouting match they realised that anymore strike days and they will die of hunger... so they got back to their work :-P
1) no old vehicles to be
thampan - 25 January, 2008 - 07:55
1) no old vehicles to be fitted with speed governors 2) govt will appeal to center for comprehensive legislation on speed governors for new vehicles. this is what i remember .. give in to the associations after 2 days of strike .. why not have announced this as soon as the strike was called for ??? ( no govt also to take blame here )
Reckless driving of Bangaloreans is the major cause for accident
Vasanth - 2 February, 2008 - 03:06
Most of the people in Bangalore drive recklessly. I have seen other cities such as Mysore where people drive with calm head and controlled speed. In Bangalore, most bikers and car drivers especially in the night drive very rash. Part of the blame goes for the long waits in the traffic signals and jams. As soon as they get clearance, they want to make the most of the lost time. Why to have such long signals making long queues of vehicles creating panic? Is our police having fun with our traffic? Second thing is the purchasing power of the Bangaloreans as compared to other cities. Most of the drivers have very powerful vehicles such as Pulsar, Apache, Swift etc. People of other cities use entry level vehicles such as Splendor, M800,Alto etc. Ofcourse, in western countries, people do have very powerful cars in the order of 2,000cc+, but drive cautiously. It is not so in India. Drivers do not slow down at the junctions, nor even see if any other vehicles is coming in the intersecting road - Even the basics of driving is not followed in the IT City. Yesterday night at around 11pm when I was taking a walk in the nearby park of our house, when the traffic was nil, I saw 1 powerful bike hitting an Activa. These 2 vehicles were only 2 vehicles on the road with one coming from one main road which intersects the other main road at rightangles. Both of them didn't slow down, nor didn't see on either sides while crossing the road and were at 60+kph.Both started the blame game. Having accidents when there is no traffic merely shows it is the lack of discipline and basic driving skills. People do not have courtesy and respect to other drivers and pedestrains. People do not have the patience to allow another person to take an 'U-Turn' or allow a passing aged pedestrain to cross the road. Driving attitude of Bangaloreans should change to make our roads safer and tension free.
speed governor
indiantrader - 29 February, 2008 - 08:23
Issue raised by Vasant is no so simple. I might have interst in promoting speed govenrors but the following has tobe realised.
1. whether u make highways or superhighways, our social fabric is such that the villagers and labourers shall sue this road as their life line for going to hospitals, markets, workplaces, relative setc and along with will be two wheelers, cycles, motorcycles, tongas, buses, cars,trucks and all. With improvement in technology both roads and vehicles are getting faster. It is a known and proved fact that beyond a cetain speed the vehicle control looses and braking distance is too less to avoid any injury. Vasant does not know that we have 13 times accident and inury rate in road accidents than average developed world. In Andhra and Karnataka we kill over 10,000persons annually on road.
2. Trucks why the target as statistics have proved that over 80 % accidents are involving commercial vehicles. I can not prove but tell you drivers over stressed, underpaid, time bound are in a hurry, increase speed to increase thier rest periods during transportation. Buses do same, as Blue line buses in Delhi, no better than truckers. You must have realised when two motorcycles collide you can get injured but not killed. But when school buses or truck get involved,....
3. On their part rarely truck carries load as per design, (norm of about 50-100% overload) carry load within dimensions designed for, with carefree exensins done with steel angles extending to hit passerbyes without any fear. This over load results in imbalances, tippling, uncontrollable driving, congestion on the roads etc etc. Never so much by any passenger car or motorcycle.
Vasant plesae do somethinking before concluding. i can help you with cuttings of over a month from your city and find out if passenger cars or motorcycles have killed so many people.
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