View from inside a trishaw (driver’s mind).
Today I was driving and a trishaw tried the thread between me and a bus, knocking my mirror. The car was OK, but WTF. After I wrote about the general pointlessness of horning, I tried to keep track of why I was doing it. 75% of the time I’m trying to impose external rationality on trishaws.
Trishaws are insane. A bunch of clowns on diesel powered tricycles would be more predictable. My main issue is lanes, trishaws don’t keep to lanes, or they drift, or they do U-Turns randomly. This means that just to pass a trishaw you have to toot, because they can just slam into you. More often than not, the trishaw is in the passing lane (itself a largely unknown concept) and you have to horn repeatedly to get them to move. That is most of my horning.
This also applies to cars but to a much lesser degree. It’s strange, the people in the most physical danger tend to drive the most recklessly. I have had a trishaw run into me at a pedestrian crossing, literally my arm went through the (plastic) window. I was OK. A trishaw is not going to survive an impact with a car or anything. Bikes are even worse, especially when kids and babies are piled onto it. Yet these people often drive the craziest.
The Southern Expressway is blissful cause it’s devoid of trishaws and motorbikes, but it’s also largely empty. Almost half of vehicles on the road are motorbikes, and there are more trishaws than cars (Vehicle Ownership In Sri Lanka). The answer is not to ban trishaws or motorbikes, but to impose some external rationality using something besides my horn.
I see trishaws doing ridiculous shit in front of cops and they don’t bother. They should. I think the existing law (rules for passing, parking, speed) should be aggressively enforced with hefty fines so people get the message. I think the cops actually did a good job of reducing drunk driving with thorough checkpoints. They could make life a lot more civil if they started checking the average trishaw as well.
You need to write on bus drivers. Those lunatics are a menace to society. Half the traffic is caused by them.
Problem is that the vehicles that cause the most disruption to traffic (trishaws and buses) are commercial transportation and if they get hassled too much they will go on strike, protest, etc, until they’re let off.
Does anyone else remember receiving a small booklet called “Negative Points” (or something along that line) with your driver’s license?
Cops should start using it. Fines are not enough as bus drivers set aside part of their earning for fines. When doing a cost benefit analysis it’s beneficial for them to drive like maniacs and get as many passengers (and pay a fine if they get caught) rather than drive according to the law.
But if you start putting points on the license and cancelling the license for a year once you get 100 points then maybe they’ll take the road rules more seriously.
We’ve survived without a working horn on the car for almost four years now. It used to emit a weak little squeak, and I think we just hoped it would recover. Must be totally dead now, though no one’s checked lately. Just too lazy to get it fixed.
Bus and truck drivers are bullies. They know you’ll give way because they’re bigger and stronger.
Fix your frickin’ horn, lazy lady. Its a mandatory safety device, not an optional extra. Sri lankans have such lax attitude to such matters, its not even funny. All they do is bitch about the next guy, without sorting their own issues out.
I rarely use the horn myself. Perhaps because I do not drive around much during the middle of the day and in rush hour, I arrive early and leave early.
I agree with Shammi, but the reverse is also true, if one drives a small car then trishaws and bikes will veer into ones path. I’m experiencing this since I moved to a car, I drove a jeep earlier and they stayed well clear, now its a bit of a nuisance, especially if driving slow. Driev aggressively and they stay away.
I have written a post on bad driving myself, it is symptomatic of the general breakdown in the rule of law. Laws no longer matter, it is power that matters.
Ministers and their cronies drive vehicles without number plates as dangerously as they wish. Since road rules are habitually broken by the powerful, the police fall into the habit of failing to enforce them on others, except when they do so selectively with the hope of getting a bribe.
Oh dear! Right away :o Me, I’m totally Sri Lankan and the old jalopy gets out only on weekends, mostly.
trishaws are the most unpredictable. i always keep my distance from them & pvt buses!