Highways!

You are driving at a speed of 110 km/hr on the highway. It is a newly constructed highway with four lanes! The lanes are clearly marked with white paints Every two kilometers, you see markers announcing the distance between you and the next major town! Encouraged by the markers  to reach the next big city sooner, you push harder on the gas! If you are not a speed-freak, you tend to slow down a bit after glancing at the speedometer. All of a sudden, a herd of goats are trying to cross the road in front of you. There is no other option but to hope the last visit to the service station was effective and the brakes are working!

When this happened to me a couple of weeks ago on the highway between Hyderabad and Bangalore, it was less dramatic. I was not speeding at 100km/hr. Instead, I was driving at 80 km/hr. Since it was a stretch of long and straight road, I had enough time to anticipate and react! I also took a picture!

Driving on highways is always an enlightening experience. Highways indicate connectivity to a major city. But, most of the highways are in a perpetual state of construction. There are so many dangers in travelling on a highway. Goats are one form of this danger. I have also seen people crossing the highway in the middle of nowhere!

The half-highways present another danger. The half-highway is the partly finished segment in an highway. It is partly finished because only side of the highway is fully functional. The dividers are constructed and the road on one side of the divider is usable. The other side is still under construction. So all the traffic is diverted to the functional side constituting the half-highway!

The stretch leading to the half-highway is the most dangerous part. While speeding on a full-highway, you are presented with big empty containers, big rocks and an uprooted trees obstructing you from going forward. In the middle of this obstruction, there is an arrow mark indicating you to turn to the other side. The arrow mark is so inconspicuous that you will hardly notice these unless you are within 50 meters from it in broad daylight.

In most of the roads, you will be zig-zagging between half-highways through a major stretch of the road. You alternate from a half-highway on your left to the half-highway on your right!

If these are not dangerous enough, then there are vehicles using the wrong side of the highway on a full-highway. These drivers use the wrong side of the road to reach the closest gap in the road which are provided for taking a U-turn. Once these drivers reaches the gap, they cross over to the right side of the road. But while breaking the law and endangering everyone around them, these drivers are the most disciplined. They stick to their left while on the wrong side of the road!

Tags: Musings,Highway