Lane discipline on 4+ lane roads in India - Why the slow lane is safer and better, for fast driving.

[xylouser]

hvkumar so there is one place with law obedience. In the UK where most motorways are six lane highways. The bottom line was use teh hard shoulder only in a breakdown. use the left most lane and move to the right (and even centre) lane only when the LH lane is busy. The rh lane is essentially an overtaking lane, not for dawdling in. The term fast lane is a misnomer.

sgiitk sir, this is no different than the discipline that was being followed on Mumbai-Pune expressway about 3 years back. In fact, till now, there are road signs which suggest - 'Use the right lane only for overtaking'. However, with increase in traffic and specially in cabs category, these manners are gone for a toss and has led to increase in number of accidents on the EWay.

[sundar]

Please check the link below which has the speed limit fixed by the Central Government at a national level is defined

http://www.surfindia.com/automobile/driving-speed.html

[shyamhegde]

During one of my drives from Mysore to Bangalore late night, I found driving on left most lane was easy. On fast lane the headlight of oncoming vehicle were bothering too much for me.

[mclaren1885]

Tadu, I did not understand how the driving from left lane might be useful in right turns.

Let me try explaining what Tadu was saying.



If you look at the pic above, the road has a swooping right hander. The dark black line indicates you taking the right most lane. When you come close to the apex, it becomes very difficult to see any bushmen/vehicles coming (indicated by small black lines along the divider). Similarly, if you take the left lane (indicated by red line) it gives you better visibility of the bushmen/vehicles and gives you ample time to decide which way you need to move in case you spot someone.

If you are in the right lane, your choices are limited to either standing on the brakes or swerving sharply to the left. If you are to the left lane, you have 3 choices. Either put 2 wheels on the mud by going slightly off the road or position yourself in a way that you can choose which lane of the road you want to stick to and better idea of which part of the road is safer to stand on the brakes.

All this has to be done with an eye on the RVM to prevent from being whacked from behind.

If I am overtaking a huge truck / container from left, I will have no visibility of the road.

Obviously, the equation changes if you are overtaking a trailer that is on the right lane. Being on the left lane should still give you slightly more reaction time and space on where to put your vehicle.

If there is another truck parked on the left side of the road or if there is any slow moving two wheeler crawling in the left lane.

If you are in the left lane, you should definitely be able to see a vehicle parked/moving slowly on the left lane in advance.

I am one of those who keep honking at trucks who are driving on the rightmost lane.

If there is space on the left, why not just overtake from the left? Two things it helps in:

1. I don't have to slow down drastically, trying to get the slower vehicle ahead to move over.
2. I don't have to lose my temper honking, shouting, cursing the guy who won't move. It just increases road rage IMO.

Very well said. I really do feel its 'unethical' to try and squeeze into the slot that I just vacated to try and overtake.

Not that I do this, but if you are trying to pull out of an overtaking manoeuvre, I think you have judged the move wrong to begin with. You really can't blame someone for making up ground while you are parallel to another vehicle trying to overtake it, before you suddenly wake up and realize that its too tight a squeeze and you need to abort the overtaking attempt. At times its not possible for the vehicle behind you to see thru both the vehicles which are parallel to each other to find out if the guy on the right lane has enough space to pull off the overtake.

PS: Sorry for the shoddy job with Paint

[xylouser]

Not that I do this, but if you are trying to pull out of an overtaking manoeuvre, I think you have judged the move wrong to begin with. You really can't blame someone for making up ground while you are parallel to another vehicle trying to overtake it, before you suddenly wake up and realize that its too tight a squeeze and you need to abort the overtaking attempt. At times its not possible for the vehicle behind you to see thru both the vehicles which are parallel to each other to find out if the guy on the right lane has enough space to pull off the overtake.

We are talking about overtaking and it may so easily happen that I think the overtaking is possible but while going for it, I realize there is too much risk and decide to back away. Isn't this a common thing? Obviously, it is a mistake but some one taking your place means that this is your last mistake in this life because you have nowhere to go.

The point is, in a busy road, even the driver behind me will get into such a situation where he has to back out of overtaking. So, when I overtake, I expect him to wait for me to finish the overtaking and then take my place. I do the same when the driver ahead of me is trying to overtake someone.

[venbab]

Not that I do this, but if you are trying to pull out of an overtaking manoeuvre, I think you have judged the move wrong to begin with. You really can't blame someone for making up ground while you are parallel to another vehicle trying to overtake it, before you suddenly wake up and realize that its too tight a squeeze and you need to abort the overtaking attempt. At times its not possible for the vehicle behind you to see thru both the vehicles which are parallel to each other to find out if the guy on the right lane has enough space to pull off the overtake.

I agree with your point, but its always advisable to maintain a certain gap between the two vehicles to allow the vehcile which is trying to overtake to come back if he has made a wrong judgement.

Before overtaking especially heavy vehicles, usually you move towards the right to see whether there is any vehicle from the other direction and also judge whether you can overtake comfortably and if you feel you cant overtake you come back to the left, I have seen some morons trying to squeeze into the gap on the left in this situation and its really dangerous.

[bhpistorqintorpm]

also it is very useful to have cleaner (an active co-driver ) in all of these long highway drives. helps greatly in times of unavoidable left side overtaking/ and in rainy night drives.

and yeah it is fun to have somebody to chat and add to chorus to *beep* words when frustrated at others (especially in mother tongue - even more if its North Karnataka style Kannada )

[mclaren1885]

I agree with your point, but its always advisable to maintain a certain gap between the two vehicles to allow the vehcile which is trying to overtake to come back if he has made a wrong judgement.

Agree with you, but most often than not when someone makes an overtaking manoeuvre (that is getting next to the vehicle you are overtaking) the normal practice for the guy behind is to *assume* that you are going to pull it off and not back off. As you stated if the guy overtaking has made a *wrong judgement* then he really should not be *complaining*.

Before overtaking especially heavy vehicles, usually you move towards the right to see whether there is any vehicle from the other direction and also judge whether you can overtake comfortably and if you feel you cant overtake you come back to the left

Hhhhmm, not experienced this much, maybe because I don't move too much to the right to allow someone from behind to *squeeze* into the gap.

But yes, general thumb rule is to maintain a safe distance.

Another habit I find handy on 2-lane highways is, if someone ahead of you stops abruptly/suddenly, switch to the right lane if you know you have to panic brake. Chances of you locking your wheels and crashing into the vehicle in front of you becomes less. It also reduces the chances of the vehicle behind you crashing into you as well. Chances that the right lane is empty is also high (you have to watch out for on-coming traffic before you switch lanes though). What this also does is, warns the vehicle coming from the opposite direction to also slow down a little if the switching of lanes is accompanied by flashing of lights too.

also it is very useful to have cleaner (an active co-driver ) in all of these long highway drives.

3rd most important factor after a good headlamps & clean windshield. A co-passenger who can judge properly and warn you of vehicles in your blind spot/vehicles you cant see over a sharp bend due to traffic ahead can save you a lot of anxious moments.

[shyamhegde]

3rd most important factor after a good headlamps & clean windshield. A co-passenger who can judge properly and warn you of vehicles in your blind spot/vehicles you cant see over a sharp bend due to traffic ahead can save you a lot of anxious moments

This helps a lot and takes considerable amount of stress from the driver. Also having someone doing this keeps the driver more alert and active.
Just that the co-passenger should not pass too many false positives and importantly panic anytime.

[sgiitk]

Please check the link below which has the speed limit fixed by the Central Government at a national level is defined

http://www.surfindia.com/automobile/driving-speed.html

I see some contradiction there

At the top it states
National Maximum Speed Limit for a Light Motor Vehicle & a Transport Vehicle is 65 Km/Hr.

then lower down in the table

Light Motor Vehicle other than a Transport Vehicle No speed limit
Light Motor Vehicle & a Transport Vehicle 65

Not clear to say the least. If I remember I read a notification quite sometime back in the papers that it has been increased to 80 kph.