Cycling in Chennai

 Rode a cycle after almost 13 years. The one before 13 years was also a just few 100 meters. There was a cycle which was collecting dust and I gave it to service and he charged me a bumper. It was almost like servicing a two wheeler. He had changed two tires and tubes. The service charge alone was 700 Rs.

I was actually worried about cycling back home as there is a subway and some years back I was not able cycle the uphill part of the subway. The other scary part was people constantly honking behind us. I was looking for a rear view mirror habitually and there was none.

Whenever I had to turn I was looking for the indicator switch and few times I tried to accelerate by throttling the right handle.

So it took me sometime to adjust to basic cycle.

The good part is I was able to do the slope easily than I had feared. So its a little comfort that there is some fitness left in me.

But riding cycle in Chennai roads would not be a pleasant experience.

Cab vs Delivery

My blogs used to be dominated by posts echoing my frustrations with bad traffic. In Chennai till few years ago the autowallahs ruled the roads. Later the cab guys joined the autowallahs. More than 50% of the traffic in the road were dominated by yellow boards or hired vehicles. The mini vans and water can delivery vans also do their contribution in making this worse.

Recently all the above has been pushed to the back by the Zomato, Swiggy, Licsious, Big Basket, Pizza hut, Dominos etc. Yes the roads are not taken over by these folks. Some of these guys make a water tanker a safe bet to ride close by. 

I hear these folks are introducing services which will be 500 times faster than an ambulance or a fire engine. 

It has become totally unsafe to walk in the roads and again there are also enough jaywalkers who has sworn to make the life of drivers a hell.

Life vs Traffic

Just had an epiphany about life and traffic.

There were times I have wondered if I have to be punished for the wrongs I did I should be dead long time ago. But here I am still alive.

When on road I have always cursed people who doesn't obey traffic rules that they be punished severely in the form of an accident. But nothing happens even to serious violators.

In nutshell for some reason beyond our understanding people don't get what they deserve. They don't reap what they sow. At least for now...

Laugh out loud

Today I read an article in The Hindu and had a hearty laugh. The point is the article was written with such serious committment. The article says that they are going to introduce ITMS in Chennai. Wow thats really wonderful to start with. The proposed cost for implementation is 150 crores. I can see your imagination running wild and you will be merging the photopraghs of Chennai and London hoping for the better.

But hold on, the moment you expand ITMS you will erase all those imagination and go back to your work. ITMS means Integrated traffic management system. Excellent whoever coined this term deserves a pat in their arse. The article has very high ambition and goes like there will be green channels for ambulances within Chennai so that they wont get struck in traffic. The moment I read that I assumed that they might talking about something like dedicated bus line, which in itself was a non starter. But no its just not about dedicated lane for ambulance you have an Italian Job in your hand. Yes, it seems there will be cameras in all signals and it will find out if an ambulance is stuck in traffic and will immediately change the signal to green. Yes sir this system is being proposed in Chennai not in some futuristic city. When you read such an article you can only laugh through your ass and move on.

But at the end of this project there will be some filthy rich people.

Tragedy

Recently a small kid was killed in an accident in chennai on the first day of her summer vacation. She was killed by a speeding goods carrier when she slipped on to the road because of sand sumped on the road for construction. I am still not able to get that sad event out of my mind.

The immediate knee jerk reaction from corporation is people should not dump sand on the road and they have provided a number to call in case we find such cases. Always we are reactive and also this will not be enforced. People will continue to do the same things and corporations will exist inactive. But the way they give notices in paper it will look like they are going to arrest lakhs of people for hving dumped sand on road. In India human life has zero value. There are absolutely no measures to prevent accidents. Be it following traffic rules, wearing helmets, getting authorisation for building none of the activities are controlled by government. But the moment people die they will issue notices and then go back into their shell.

We have to blame the people as well for having absolutely no self discipline. Whether he is a IIM gradutate or 1st std fail no one respects any rule in this country. Again I repeat because of the sins of our previous birth we are born in this country.

Mount Road

Entire stretch of mount road has been made one way from Nandanam till Simpson. I cant imagine the traffic jams in all other roads due to this. All this is because of the way India reacts to developments. We dont plan for the future we always provide what was needed 20 years ago. This will continue in future also as I dont see anything positive happening.

Silver lining in this problem is buses can still use mount road so bus should slowly become the prefered mode of transport there by reducing congetions within the city.

No more spencer plazas and express avenues, only City center.

Ceat

No one has shared my thoughts as well as Ceat tyre ads .. some of them for your eyes

Traffic Signals

Chennai Traffic Police always finds innovative ways to make a problem worse. One such interesting way they follow is operating all traffic signals manually. They think that solves the traffic problem during peak hours. In the name of manual operation they will open one side of the traffic and keep it open till all vehicles in that side is cleared.

In that mean time traffic will be piling up on the other three sides now when they open the next side again they will keep it open for as long as it takes for the traffic on that side to clear. Sometimes you might even be made to wait for 5 full minutes.

The manual operation of the signal will be given to any guy who is the friend of the traffic police. And road users will be at the mercy of that individual. He will open one side and will start talking to his friends for a long time during which you will keep watching him when he will show mercy and open your side of the traffic.

Traffic

I was caught for Signal violation near Madhya Kailash. It was my mistake, I got confused by the Signal and attempted to cross when it was no right turn for me. Immediately I was taken care by the Traffic Sergeant and another vehicle who tried to tail me was also pulled over. Now the moment I was pulled over I knew I was done.

I tried to apologise for overrunning a no right signal. He was courteous but was not willing to let go off me. He took me and the other driver to where his boss was standing. The boss immediately started advising how dangerous it is to drive like that. Again I said I was sorry. But he was not interested in my sorry. It was getting late for my office and I was standing there in sweltering sun waiting for pardon from him.

My luck an accident occurred and his full attention went to that and he totally forgot about me. I tried to get the help of the Sergeant but he himself was afraid of his boss and was not willing to help. Finally I got his attention and he mentioned some numbers which made me dizzy. Finally I managed to escape by doing you know what.

I try to be very careful but somehow that day I lost concentration. Luckily it was not a major incident.

Assembly

For the opening of the new Assembly entire Chennai is being disturbed. They have mentioned the entire Anna Salai will be blocked between Meenambakkam and the new Assembly. The currently chief minister way of spending and the way people sing praises of him reminds us of the days of Jayalalitha. People are going out of the way to sing praises about him and money is spent lavishly not on actual construction but for the opening ceremonies. He keeps promising freebies after freebies. With the entire media from Newspaper, Television, Movie, been taken over by his family members its slowly becoming like dictatorship.

The idiots who will do anything for a glass of Romonov and a plate of Chicken 65, have tied so many posters along the GST road with many of them hanging dangerously. There have been instances in the past people dying in road accidents caused by these posters. Isn't there any fucking rule which prohibits this? The cops have merely become security guards for politicians and nothing more. These hopeless people put ban against flying kites citing danger to motorists.

Even basic rules are being violated in this country, going to court doesnt help in anyway as the first thing the court does is to postpone the hearing.

Fuck it.

Outside India

In the west the vehicles respect the pedestrian. It will stop for one to cross the road. A pedestrian will respect the vehicle and doesn't come in its path except to cross at designated spots.

Here in our desh it doesn't matter if it is red signal or zebra crossing people drive like maniacs and pedestrians walk like zombies in all directions. If you try to wait for a pedestrian to cross the guy behind you honks the horn such that you will feel you are in front of an ambulance.

If you follow a car at a normal speed and the car in front of you is going smooth and cool be cautious. The B****d might abruptly stop to take a left or right without caring for the vehicle behind.

Almost 90% of the Tata Sumos, Toyota Innovas and Mahindra Scorpios sport a flag in front. Now this gives them license to go at double the speed limit and scare any one else who happens to be on the road at that time.

The only other B****d who is licensed to take on such vehicles sporting the flag is Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses, IT company buses and College buses.

Though we have such deadly vehicles on road which makes us run like scared rabbits into a hole there are vehicles who doesn't care even if a elephant drives past them in a water tanker. They are the TVS 50 walas and three wheelers such as ape, Piaggio etc.They drive at a leisurely speed of 20 km/hr. I salute their bravery.

Two Things

First Thing
Today there was a news about a Martui Omni ramming into a Govt bus and 10 people in the Omni died and one is critical. Now I dont want to be insensitive to the family which is already going through a nightmare but this incident (not accident) only raises question about the safety standards of our country. Is an Omni designed to carry 11 people?
Traffic police are only bystanders in our contry. Though they have all the power in their hands they are only ready to misuse it rather than use it. There might be people who will be violating the rule right under their nose who will go scot free but a person who violates rule in a empty road will be caught and fined. The sanctity of the rule is lost here.
As mentioned in my previous post, the death angels Black Taxis try to overtake from the left where there is only gap for a cycle to go and make you go to the extreme right closely followed by his retarded companion a Sumo. All these idiots who think through their ass are aged not more than 17 to 23.
A sense of fear should be instilled in these retards minds, a simple violation should be charged with the maximu fine and the rule should be ruthlessly followed. In India only fear works and that too only for a minimal %.
Unless this is done valuable lives will be lot everyday. The act of me surviving this chaos can only be termed as Miracle and nothing else. I know this is my umpteenth post on traffic and another ton will follow. I cant help it.
Second thing
Our broadcasting ministry is thinking of coming up with some new rule of giving copyright ownership to the creator as well. Till now the copyright is owned by the producer and not the director. If the new rule comes in then the director will also own the copyright.
Is this a right decision? On first look it might look it is right but there are so many questions in it. In software scenario the code which is created by a dveloper is owned by the client who pays for it. If the new rule is applied there who will own the code? People might say developer should own it but what about the designer? the tester? the planner?
Similarly in Cine industry too there are so many areas such as Choreography, Cinematography, Stroy, Screenplay, Fight etc now if copyright is given only to Director does it satisfy the need?
Knowing about indian think tanks who never think before they act, they might soon implement this and create a mess.
For me the existing rule of the guy who paid for the whole thing owns the right makes sense. The rule can be relaxed only for whoever is working on profit sharing mode than salary mode. Then again it cannot be blindly implemented.

Black Taxi

The initial topic that I gave for this section was Black Taxi Bastards but removed the last word as I felt it was too strong to be in title.

Though in chennai roads no idiot follows rules, these Black Taxi morons stand out among them in their speed. These pea brained fellows drive like as if there is a time bomb up their arse and it could explode if they dont reach destination within specified time.

If you are lucky and end up behind one such Black taxi they will appy ash on your face for free. None of these taxis are maintained well and they spew black burnt fume copiously.

A vehicle named ..

There came chennai traffic commisioner before a gathering of people from all over the world. There they were at the famous anna salai at the widest section of anna salai. He signalled and buses of various sizes came and occupied the road in various positions. He asked the crowd "Is the road full?". People said "yes". Now he brought in few road rollers and asked them to occupy the gap between the buses. The people were amazed at how the road rollers managed to occupy the spaces.

He asked the crowd "Is the road full?". People said "yes". He asked Sumos, Scorpios and Innovas to occupy the gap. They did so skillfuly. People were going crazy and some of them fainted. Again he asked the crowd "Is the road full?". People said "yes". He asked i10s, Altos and Honda Citys to occupy the space. Before people could blink the gaps were taken by the vehicles. Again he asked the crowd "Is the road full?". People said "yes".

He called Pulsars, CBZs and Unicorns to occupy remaining space they did it by doing somersault. Again he asked the crowd "Is the road full?". People said "yes". He called all the cycle wallahs to fill the gaps they did it skilfuly.

Again he asked the crowd "Is the road full?". People said "yes". He too replied "yes you are right it is full. hope you learnt about our skill". He demonstrated it by showing how not even a pedestrain could go between the vechiles anymore. People started praising Indians driving skills. When all were about to leave there came an vehicle painted in yellow did some magic and there it was in front of all the vechiles. No one including the commissioner knew how it came to the front but come it did.

The name of the vechile is Auto.

Some more

Few days back I read a news about couple of students from SRM college who were waiting outside for bus were knocked down by a vechile. Seems it is an accident prone zone. The traffic commisioner when enquired about this his reply was since that is an highway they cant put speed breakers and they are searcing for solutions.

My first issue is this is one lame excuse. If they decide to put speed breaker they can put it even is a runway. What will he call all those back breaking speed breakers in ECR? Will he call ECR as a small lane? 

May be he was implying they always rely on natural speed breakers which chennai is very famous for.

Today another news that in GN Chetty road a car knocked down an auto (the auto is now unrecognisable) and killed two persons in the auto. This has happened in GN Chetty road which is crowded road where you cant even go beyond 30 km/hr.

Has the governtment taken any effort for prevention of accidents? So many valuable lives are lost because of their inaction.

The problem is there used to be a time when things happen to others we wont care and when things happen to us we will react but now that also has changed. If it happens to us also we wont react.

எமன்

ஆம் சில நாட்களுக்கு முன்பு பைக்கில் வந்து கொண்டு இருக்கும் பொழுது எனக்கு முன்பாக சென்ற பேருந்தின் எண் M1 அதை படித்த உடன் எனக்கு தோன்றியது சரியாக தான் பெயர் வைத்து இருக்கிறார்கள் என்று.

எனக்கு தெரிந்து எந்த ஒரு பேருந்தும் அடுத்தவர்களை பயமுறுத்தாமல் சென்றதாக சரித்திரம் இல்லை. அதின் உள்ளே இருப்பவர்களுக்கு மட்டுமே அது பாதுகாப்பு கொடுக்கும் வெளியே இருப்பவர்களின் உயிருக்கு அது உத்திரவாதம் கொடுக்காது.

Death

Its sad that we witness atleast one death a day in the roads of chennai. The saddest part is innocent people die because of few reckless drivers. It seems on Thursday two guys riding a bike hit the signal near Raj bhavan loosing control of their bike.

Few days back I encountered one such rash rider but he scolded me a vanished in thin air. Now if I was not careful I would have knocked down those guys suffer for my life because their negligence.

When will our guys change?

சோகம்

சென்னையில் சில தினங்களுக்கு முன்பு நடந்த ஒரு விபத்தில் ஒரே குடும்பத்தில் மூன்று பேர் இறந்து போயினர். அதோடு காரை ஒட்டி வந்த ஓட்டுனரும் இறந்தார். அந்த காரில் இருந்து ஒரே ஒருவர் மாத்திரம் பிழைத்தார். ஒரு கணவன் ஒரு மனைவி அவர்களது ஒரு மகன் இறந்து போயினர். மற்றொரு மகன் பிழைத்தான்.

இவர்கள் மகாபலிபுரம் நோக்கி கிழக்கு கடற்கரை சாலையில் செல்லும் போது இந்த விபத்து நடந்துள்ளது அதுவும் மாலை நான்கு மணி அளவில். காரணம் எதிரே வந்த கார் இந்த காரின் மீது மோதியது தான் காரணம். அந்த காரின் ஓட்டுனர் குடித்திருந்தார் என்று சொல்கிறார்கள். இவர்கள் சென்ற கார் எப்படி சென்றது என்று தெரியவில்லை.

Whenever I advice people on the ills of rash driving and not following rules people look at me strangely and laugh at me. Whenever we drive we should be very careful for other drivers mistake. If everyone drives with that in mind, if someone accidentally commits a mistake also we can escape it. But when everyone gives a damn about other drivers and drive like maniacs such accidents are bound to happen.

Ape

Did you ever think that apes would rule the world? I didnt.

But Ape's have started. In few more years Ape's would start to rule the world. They have started from India especially Chennai.

Piaggio is helping these Ape's to rule the world.

Hope you got it.

Nowadays everything from gas cylinders, water cans goes in ape at the speed of 20 km/hr. Since they are three wheeled they are as notorious as Autos.

They are there on highways, smaller streets every nook and corner.

I wish by some magic entire chennai traffic is corrected in a single day.

Rash idiots

Back with another post on our own chennai drivers/riders.

The mantra for chennai riders/drivers is if you find a free unoccupied space put the front wheel/nose of your vehicle there immediately. It doesnt matter wat type of vehicle you are in. It could be a cycle or a lorry. It also doesnt matter where the space is whether it is oppsite direction, left, right, up down nothing matters. As soon as you find a space put your nose there.

What if your eagles eye has spotted an unoccupied space but a sensible driver before you blocks you and that free space?
Easy the vehichle you are in will have something called horn, honk it such that, if there is a pregnant lady around that spot should give birth right there. Now the sensible drive will give you space and you can catch your space.

A bunch of losers not more than 16 yrs old rule chennai roads now in the form of call fucking taxis. Not only they cause problems when riding they occupy alomost any vacant land for parking their vechiles too.

Tata helps them by manufacturing Indica. Now they help them further by coming up with Nano.