Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Note to Bangalore’s drivers

- Think one move ahead. Just one, that’s all I’m asking. If you’re going straight, don’t get in the lane turning left and then honk at the cars in front when your light turns green. And for God’s sake stop changing lanes in the middle of an intersection.

- This will also prevent you from looking more than usually stupid by honking at buses that have stopped at bus stops. That is what buses do. If you can’t work out earlier that you need to get out from behind them, you just have to wait until they’re done instead of telling the driver things about his sister.

- What is it about your upbringing that makes you speed up and squeeze moronically around a car that’s already more than half-turned into the road?

- If there’s a long line at a green light, it means that it will take a while for the cars at the back to move. And when they do, it can only be at the speed of those in front. Yes it’s frustrating when you can see the green light up ahead from your high perch in your SUV, and I don’t want to sit through another red light either, but honking at me continuously for half a kilometer of crawling is not only rude, it shows you up as having the IQ of a gnat.

- When there’s heavy traffic, vehicles going in one direction are sometimes marooned at the intersection when other lights turn green. This is not a personal insult. And trying to go around and through them only makes the snarl worse. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

- To the blue Honda on the ring road this morning: If you want to drive at 30kmph, please do it on the service road, not the fast lane. Yes there is one. It’s the one you were on this morning. I am the person who rolled her window down and abused you in Kannada.

- To the dangerous red Santro at the other end of the spectrum who cut me and several others off at the speed of light: Don’t think I haven’t noted your number and called it in.

- To the white Scorpio who sat in my boot for about five kilometers and then overtook through a crowded bus stop: Ditto.

- Also, bus stops are not lay-bys. When you park there to drink tender-coconut water, the buses have to stop in the middle of the road. And there’ll always be a motorcycle unwilling to wait 20 seconds who will ride ahead and get tangled up with alighting passengers.

- On the subject of which, here’s a question for the motorcyclist on Sarjapur Road: Do you believe you’re immortal? Is that why your helmet sits on your mirror, preventing you from seeing that there’s a car in the lane you’re weaving onto? The next time one of you tries to overtake from the left when my left indicator is on, I will swerve and sacrifice a door or two just to see you crash and burn.

- Question for the cyclist I've seen more than once at the Kundanhalli traffic light: Do you think road rules do not apply to you? You may be greener than Othello and the favourite child of the conserved Earth, but the next time you jump a red light, I will not brake. I wish the fire truck you held up today hadn’t.

- To the giant BMW with no license plate that was casually parked right across my turning: It was me that left the rude note on your windscreen. I understand that if you have the wherewithal to own a 7 Series in India, you probably own the Government, the RTO and the internal revenue as well, but if you do it again, I will say it with a tire iron.

13 comments:

sameer said...

Actually, the road rules are different for Motor Vehicles, non, and pedestrians. On a cycle, I follow the ones they do in Idaho - cause that makes sense. Tho no, that does not include blocking traffic. Yielding is an art.

hyde said...

How many times I have wished for my motorcycle to magically turn into a bulldozer for all those bozos coming down the wrong side of the road...!

Anonymous said...

mina, I have a request..... please write in kannada...thats the kannadiga's language.... and give me a copy and I will post it all over bangalore.and send it to the Police Commissioner and I will join you in breaking the windshield of a rude BMW with a....not tyre iron..but with a crow bar or a pickaxe ( which I carry in my car always.... for self protection!)...achan

MC Hammer said...

Is the cyclist who held up the fire truck one of the noo cyclists-by-choice sort? Take a picture of him/her and I'll see that he's publicly flogged. Or at least publicly shamed.

Also, what did the BMW note say??

Gargoyle said...

Oh yes definitely noo, helmet has a sticker and everything. Probably BZ member.

The BMW note featured the words motherf***er", son of a b**** and my granny (as one who can park better than him)

MC Hammer said...

Seriously then, take a picture of him and send it to me.

While there are cases where a cyclist jumping a red light can be erm... shall we say, merely frowned upon, none of those cases excuse the holding up of any sort of vehicle, especially not a fire truck!

Jayadeep(JDP) said...

You sure are driving way too much to have met so many of'em:) I kept fighting with these morons when I started driving and had similar feelings that you have. Then I shifted my work hours early to avoid them, then started using my company bus before I landed up at a place close enough for me to commute by cycle(I ignore the morons) or a BMTC bus. The only person I can change for sure is just myself, not those morons on the road!

Abhishek Thakur said...

whoaa ho ho! Deliciously vicious!

I think I can explain the blue honda- they must have been talking on phone! And about the BMW, there is a possibility that they are chauffeur driven- hence the boorish behaviour (although that is not a prereqquisite for boorish behaviour!)

Vimal said...

yay! Someone is FINALLY asking the right questions! three cheers! read my blog.

Anonymous said...

Mina, you should drive a truck... only then the power of your words will show.

Anonymous said...

Well, this is not going to change anything but I am glad that you wrote about it atleast.

Srini said...

mm..lets look at possibilities to change these..got ideas? write them..we will get our acts together and start something going!I have grown bald tearing my hair thinking of something to stop this behaviour..

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