Lane Sense @ Bangalore !! [Jam City]
Whilst in most countries and places (which follow the RHD car system), it is suggested that slow moving vehicles keep left, the overtaking of another vehicle be done moving into the faster lane, which is usually on the right side.
But as I was making my way to office, in the company bus, I noticed. That not only did the HMVs prefer to ride on the right most lane (where there are three lanes), they overtook each other by moving on to the Middle Lane.
By Far, the faster vehicles would either stick to the middle lane or zig-zag in order to get around the slow moving HMVs on right-most lane or the slow moving ultra-light vehicles like the auto rickshaws (and some times parked vehicles) on the left most lane. And the not so fast, but faster than these would prefer the middle lane.
Now HMVs choosing the Right Most lane makes sense to the HMV drivers. Simply because you are expected to get the least ‘obstructions’ on this lane. ‘Obstructions’ in form of Parked Vehicles or that Auto Rickshaw that suddenly comes into your lane to avoid something else. And as physics would suggest, not only these HMVs take a lot of time attain there maximum safe speed, that also take a lot of time to slow down and avoid those obstructions. Driving on the Right most lane makes more sense in terms of safety for them. So I don’t actually blame the HMVs.
And this too, I observed on a stretch of around 12 KMs in the morning hours of 0700 to 0720. The traffic on the later hours is so chaotic that its hard to find a pattern (at least for me). But yes most of the time, you would stumble upon a classic textbook example of a deadlock situation during the traffic. This is the Silicon Valley of the East !! or can be re-christianed as the
“Jam City”
I hope, our traffic department has some plans, or they are just happy that people are ‘managing’ fine.
