Saturday, May 2, 2009

Looney Drivers!!!

I think I have waited long enough not to write about this. By the way this is another one of my “traffic posts”…
So, so far in these posts of mine we have established that people in traffic are fun to observe and great to write about and hopefully even better to read about. But this time I am a little pissed….

Think about this…

Proud of yourself as you finally did something constructive in office you get out feeling all happy and gay (no pun intended). You get into your car with a smile on your face and the glitter of achievement in your eyes. You decide that today you will not shout at anyone and you will drive at your own leisurely pace (leisurely, when compared to the normal days). You will let every one who wants to overtake you, go by. Basically, you are going to do what you should do every time you drive. So, you start the car, press play on the music system in your car, increase the volume so that you don’t hear the miss-happenings outside and off you go.

You go off slowly and easily giving a broad smile to the faces of the people that pass you by and look at you with disgust (they really don’t have anything against you, its just that it is there “traffic face or driving face” or may be it has become that way). You get stuck in the traffic one or two times and the sun starts to go down, but its ok you have had a good day. You switch on the lights on low beam and continue driving.

Then the problem starts, the people around you go absolutely nuts and with their circuits loose (talking about the brain and not the car, if you didn’t get it) they switch on their lights on high beam. WTF!!! In the middle of the city where the traffic lights are so bright that anything coming at you is perfectly visible, people start coming at you with the blinding high beam. Absolutely nothing is visible to you whenever a car passes you from the front and you just miss the stray dogs and the cows on the roads (Still in India dogs and cows roam around freely without anyone to stop them). I mean as it is it’s difficult to miss them while driving.

So, if anyone of you is reading this please spread the word, don’t drive on a high beam and ask your friends and family also not to, at least not on brightly lit places. I personally feel there should be a law made for it. Till then, keep your eyes open and drive safely. And by the way…

You some how reach home feeling pissed and frustrated again. So, much for the great broad grin…

14 comments:

sm said...

very nice article mukund
i like your blog so neat ,proper placements
excellent going to vote for you

Anonymous said...

aw! that's sad. yeah people are stupid when they drive. maybe people are just stupid, haha. i never used to notice when people didn't follow the rules of the road, but now that im almost ready to get my permit, i've started noticing these things and becoming disgruntled.

R said...

Lack of civic sense+ lack of common sense + very easy procedure to get licenses = all the traffic mess we have around us. Add to that the bad roads + haphazard or non-existent town planning + encroachments. The procedure for getting licenses should be made tougher. It's very difficult to a driver's license in other countries. In the Mumbai RTO you can get it for a small bribe!
I'm pissed off too.

Anonymous said...

lol!!!
I must add one more to your list of misconceptions...
We travel by vehicles and not on elephant back anymore!
And bad drivers...They're everywhere! :D
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Hope to see more of you! :)

Ching Ya said...

Well, as nive said it, you can find such drivers everywhere. The unnecessary highbeam completely blinded all the possible visions a driver has on the road, especially when the surroundings are full of working lamp posts, and.. sometimes, during daylight?? ... *speechless*

Probably it's a must to put that in the driving-lessons, or even during the exams! So much for a commonsense, it's the ethic we're missing.

By the way, your blog is looking great, same goes with your writings. Always a joy to head back here.

Thanks for your comment on my blog. I've updated a brief seesmic desktop intro for your suggestion. Thanks for the reminder, appreciate it.

@wchingya
Social Media/Blogging

Anonymous said...

Hey I think I'd left a comment earlier, dunno what happened to it though :(

Anonymous said...

Anyway, the previous one was to check for technical errors.
I like your blog
A huge pain to drive around in India, I'm from Bangalore and I read you're from Delhi and trust me Bangalore is much more worse than Delhi...
It takes a hell lotta effort to get around town.

Oh another common misconception to the outside world.
Indians don't travel on elephant backs anymore!!!

Mukund said...

sm:thanks for the vote, I hope the others are reading this and getting ready to vote for me.

flight:haha... I suppose people just forget to apply themselves when they are driving, do keeep us informed of your experience with the examination and the traffic.

Julia:Glad to see you here,good that you took a break from work. I agree we should give common sense and driving skills equal weightage. As of now its the same case every where in India. You don't get a license without bribes, its like a fees now.

Ching:You are right common sense is not that common...
Read the update and planning to try my hands at it and its always great to have you here as well.Thanks for the great comment.

Niveditha:I still see your previous comment, may be you just missed it but no biggie. I am glad you came back, you are welcome everytime, as many times you are here. Well I suppose this is the case with all the metros. The misconception that you told about reminds me of the chevorelette ad.

Teja said...

You guys have to hear this... The head light of my bike smashed (Long story) and so i went to repair it. I got myself a new Head light fixed and was ready to drive away. I dint really test the headlight cos when i took my bike back, it was 2 in the afternoon... That night wheni was going out, i switched onthe light and found that i wasnt able to look where my head light was focussing... later i found out that it was directed at parallel angle to the road aiming at a biker's head coming in teh opposite direction... I went back to the service shop to tell him that the head light orientation was wrong.. Here comes the funny part.. he says : How can u know whos coming in front if the beam doesnt hit the other guys head?.... The story continued with a series of arguments between me and the mechanic guy... And finally, me being the customer won it and got the damn thing repaired.. the mechanic had a weird expression of his face even after i left... Sad thing..

confused rants said...

good one but u wld find such drivers everywhere..lolss:)

Mukund said...

Teja:Haha... funny thing, but that was not on purpose. Here people do this for god knows what reason and are perfectly aware of it.

Sweetnothings: Great to have you here...Never been abroad but I am sure there are such drivers everywhere. Things shouls Improve though. Thanks for the visit.

Abhilash Kumar said...

Its a mad driven world. And the worst part is that these people are perfectly hospitable when not behind the wheel.

Anonymous said...

This is so true. I'm from Pune- the city of two wheelers - and imagine, all those vehicles coming form the opposite side have their headlights on high-beam. I remember, some years back, there was a rule made. You had to stick a approx 3 cm diameter black circular sticker at the center of your headlight. But like all good traffic rules, it was soon taken off. BTW, i'm blogrolling you. Hope you don't mind, but lemme know if you do :-)

Mukund said...

Abhilash: Ya, these people actually talk sense when you talk to them face to face (at least some do), don't know what happens while driving.

Whiteopal: Well, no I absolutely don't mind you blogrolling me as a matter of fact I am more than happy. Ya there was actually a rule like that when the top of the headlights of the cars were also painted but don't know what happened to that.