Tips on driving on the NH-17 - Old Bombay - Kochi Road

[sidtalageri]

Folks,

With the rise of accidents happening on the NH-17- between the Bombay- Goa road and the PWD not bothering about upgrading the safety I thought why not experienced GHians share their pointers while doing this drive. One may also want to add other regions as well on this route and not just restrict it to the Bombay- Goa route.

This would come in handy for anyone browsing this site, or willing to drive on this route. I would request if any of our members could post photographs taken on this route, specially the blind spots or any other photo that could be useful, would be of assistance, which would give a feeler how the road looks like.

Also we can include pointers in case of emergency and contact information pertaining to any garages or mechanics if any on this route.

Mods may want to merge this thread with tips on high -way driving but I thought to have an exclusive thread for this subject as one may tend to miss the merged thread. Or if there is a similar thread open, kindly guide me to it.

[hvkumar]

Do not drive NH17 between Bombay & Goa at night - it is a death-trap because of the large number of buses that travel between Goa/towns on Konkan coast and Bombay. They drive very rashly especially on the ght sections. Whenever I go on this road during night, I ensure that I am not in some specific sections around the time when the bunched-up buses arrive at that spot.

Daytime driving on NH17 is the best, but ensure you leave Bombay early - but not too early (because you will see buses hurtling at you all over the road n the Pen-Panvel section) - so that you can beat the messy traffic till Pen/Nagothane.

[Praful]

but not too early (because you will see buses hurtling at you all over the road n the Pen-Panvel section)

Even for a reverse route same story, if you leave too early from Goa, you will have incoming buses coming at you at crazy speeds in the ghats. Back in 2008, I had once left Goa at about 4.30AM, had a painful time trying to stay away from the Mad buses between 6-7 AM!

[sidtalageri]

Good start fellas!!!

[hvkumar]

On the other hand, driving by night is the way to go on NH17 south of Goa, all the way to Kochi. Day traffic is very high, too many towns, miserable miscellaneous traffic.
Kundapura-Mangalore is bad but once you cross into KL, it becomes worse, especially between Kannur & Kozhikode.
NH17 is very narrow inside south Goa and after Kodungallur in KL. Watch out for many blind curves.
I ahve driven through NH17 many times by night, you have to be very careful about refuelling, hardly any petrol pumps are open.
The ones I can think of if you are coming from Kochi are the low-tax pumps in Mahe, then a stray pump in Kundapura & Honavar.
2 tax-saving fuelling points - Mahe is Pondicherry and cheap. After that is Goa. When driving from Trivandrum to Bombay on thsi route, I plan it such a manner that I do my first refuelling in Mahe and second in Goa to save on costs.

What is most unusual in NH17 is that there is absolutely no truck traffic - but for iron ore trucks between Ankola & Mangalore - since there is hardly any industry south of Chiplun in MH (except for Goa) till you reach Mangalore.

Starting from Pholadpur (south of Mahad), ghats all the way till you cross Rajapur. Roads are mostly wide but bus traffic is bad.

[MX6]

I ahve driven through NH17 many times by night, you have to be very careful about refuelling, hardly any petrol pumps are open.

Coastal karnataka sleeps after 9 pm. It is a drivers delight from Ankola to Mangalore after 10 pm. Sadly, I can't recollect seeing any petrol pump open between Ankola and Udupi in the night.

Also note that none of the pumps in that stretch accept credit cards. And ATMs are incide the towns. So do carry cash during any time of the day to refuel.

I had the experience of driving from HCL pump at Kamaths ankola to BP in Kumta only to find that they too don't accept cards. Then I drove to Honnavara to find the pump closed. Finally, I decided not to risk it and put in around 10 litres of fuel at Bhatkal BP.

Same with NH63 from Hubli to Ankola. However the Yellapura BP bunk is open till late in the nights (as I found out once) and thank heavens they accept credit card as well.

[Adithya R]

I've traveled only from Guruvayur (Chavakkad) to Ernakulam on the NH 17.
In this particular stretch, starting early is the key. At around 5:00am, there was almost nil traffic till Ernakulam. But, one must be safe with the narrow and curvy stretches. It gets very narrow and curvy after Kodungallur.

[sidtalageri]

Good pointers, now are there are any sort of signaling used by drivers who are frequent on this route. Being a single laner all throughout and a place where signs and rules are made on the spot, I wanted to know are there any such signals used by the drivers, the most common being the vehicle coming from opposite direction trying to overtake flashing at you to indicate its intentions for us to slow down and to give way , truckers keeping their right turn signal on indicating people to overtake etc...

[sidtalageri]

Any good hotels on this route for having meal?

[sagartiru2006]

will narate my experiences within 4-5dayz in sindudrg will leave 2 mumbai soon in my getzy drove frm mumbai to sangameshwar 315kms 7hrs ! then switched drivers will again do the same will post eberything soon !' keep updating this column !!