The easiest way. Not the right way.

And why is this just expressways/specific roads? As someone said earlier, it boils down to money. nothing else. The palm greased babus get convinced that as a favour for the bribe money they receive from the toll, bikes will not be allowed on that premium stretch of road. And this has nothing to do with helmetless riding. So what about all the regular roads where many bikers die everyday? Going by your logic, they should be banned there too. Some dumb cager might run them over there too!

This may sound OT but try to understand the concept at least. Everyone knows cigarettes are bad for health and cause cancer etc. Why aren't they banned outright then? Millions of lives would be saved that way. And i'm not talking 2nd hand. If you can open your eyes and see why cancer sticks aren't banned yet, you will understand why this picking on bikers is happening.

Just the other day i was dropping a friend off at the airport. Had to use both the eastern and western express highways. What most pissed me off was bikers, no not rash ones just regular commuters, but riding in each and every lane imaginable. I usually drive fast, plus this was an airport drop so i was in a hurry. But these damn bikers were all over the place, left lane, center lane and fast lane. doing 30-40-50 whatever they felt like. And most of em wont move even if you honk/flash. But you know the best thing? Taking the whole trip into account, there were more cars doing the same thing and blocking my path!

I am talking about the easiest way. And the most effective on a short term! And I do not see it as wrong, not on expressways at least.

I hope you know that each and every vehicle is monitored at the toll plazas? Whether you take a receipt or not, every vehicle passing through is checked and double-checked!

Yes a dumb cager might mow me down on normal roads in town. But I would not be trying an insane 105kmph on a rickety old antediluvian Rajdoot175 from 3 decades ago gone unstable from rust on the smaller streets inside town which definitely puts me at a multi-fold risk on the Expressways with bigger more stable vehicles zooming past 120+ speeds!

Even when I am on a Sbk and doing a sane 120 on an E-way, several Civic/Pajero/Endeavour owners get disgruntled and try to chase and corner me! At least in the North.

We are not a mature population on the roads. We are not used to seeing fast bikes on the roads. People look at a bike as an upgrade from a bicycle. And if you are a biker, god save your soul!!! There is no hope left for you!!!

Sorry, I do not concur with you. (But it is not personal).

I think I have seen enough in this world across continents to know about such lobbies and much more. And I dare say that your analogy here does not hold water! I really do not see your point in this context. Yet my eyes are quite open!

I do not see your point here either!

All the two wheelers who are affected should go and park their bikes in the court and ask for replacements as four wheelers so that they can drive on flyover.

your point is not clear Ken........ two-wheelers are not allowed on expressway due to security reasons........ so what about the vehicles which do no have air-bags........ they are as dangerous for the driver and co-passengers as any bikes........ if any accidents happens, how will they be saved........ so how many people does have to give sacrifice before the government makes it compulsory for the cos. to have airbags........ n a poser might be riding his alto or 800 or any vehicle and can hit a civic or corolla or any big vehicle and get killed........ even we see a lot of esteems running at their tops and rashly on expressways........ they try to compete with civics n corollas or innovas........ so does this becomes safe........
its about the right knowledge(both about driving & rules)........ we see people try to run faster whenever they see any cops nearby........ causing more risk........ very few people knows the exact fine for not carrying dl or breaking signal or entering no entry or whatever......... police will ask a hefty amount and that poor chap will try to settle it for less........ sometimes people pay more that the original fine that too without the receipt......... so whom should we blame......... the police, cause they are corrupt........ or us, cause we're making them corrupt........

strict rule and punishment will worsen the scenario........ people then will be forced to pay more and that money will not go to the government........ first of all we should make the normal people understand about the proper rules and the charges they have to pay if they break law........ not any amount uttered by the police at the scene........ they should know about their rights, like what is the procedure if the policeman is not giving receipts......... these small things matter.........

I doubt the monitoring part........ how do they do that ........ is it really possible........

n now see you are talking about the insane driving of the cagers........ so then no-one's monitoring them........

what we need is the right knowledge of driving & rules.........

EDIT:--- one snap came n not the other...... this happened last week when some yong people cam from wrong side on Swift and hit Accord....... the swift didn't had airbags and the co-passenger hit the windshield........

Pads raised a good point. If bikes are banned on tollways because of the higher speeds, what about the millions of 800s and altos which comprise a large percentage of indian cars? most bikes these days can go faster than them. and i'm not talking sbks. when i do pune on the old highway, i was cruising at 110-120, and have an average speed of 90kmph. this is on an rtr, not an sbk. and i think the max speed limit on the expressway is 120kmph.

If you tell me that bikers are removed from the expressways for their benefit to save their lives that's just a load of bullcrap. That's where my analogy with the ciggi bit came in, ban them and save millions from cancer. make sense?

my point with the airport trip example was that cagers are as bad, sometimes worse than bikers when it comes to road sense and driving discipline. So why pick on bikers alone is my question?

Anyway, this topic is getting way out of hand. I think everyone knows we'll never be able to understand govt. decisions simply because most of them are absurd. This thread was about banning bikes on the JJ viaduct. And i repeat that the problem is two-fold. Bikes going too fast for that turn, and poor engineering design. The solution is too simple. Barricades in staggered formation at the turn so vehicles have to slow down to negotiate that turn and some kind of grip inducing material to cover the expansion joints. But who's listening? All the powerful big guns going to colaba have their fancy, expensive cars so they're not gonna fight for the bikers. I'm sure all it would have taken was one big-shot businessman or politician's relative and the ban would have been repealed ages ago.

If you are saying that bikers and people travelling by a car, be it an Alto or a Nano have the same risks then honestly I really have nothing to say here!!!

It is very simple, next time you take a "hi-tech" toll, check at the sensors on the road just before the toll and also just after the toll. You can actually see and "feel" the feedback from them from a layer under the road!

Also peek in at the monitoring screens inside and you will see.

Also, at some toll plazas, at the payment booth, you will see small photo-voltaic cells.

Each time the barrier-open button is pressed, there is accountability! It is not very difficult really. It is also clearly mentioned in print, "Even if you do not take a printout, each passing vehicle's payment is monitored"!

Not everybody rides and RTR at 120! Most people ride somewhere between 30-35 kmph. Less vulnerable than you. But it slows down traffic for sure. And I as an occasional car driver (close to 2Lac kilometres though) do feel the danger of two wheelers when I encounter them on highways, I mean danger to them, not me.

If you really think that banning bikers from Expressways is crap, then so be it. However tobacco is largely to do with lobbies.
Marijuana is banned in the country. However, an estimated quarter of a billion people consume it in this country during the festivities of Holi! Does that make you feel better?

Because bikers are more vulnerable. Simple. (That is besides the point that they are also an indisciplined lot.)

There is another word for it... it is also called corruption! You are speaking the same language.

Now I will give you a first hand example. I was travelling in my Bus over the Expressway. I had dropped my clients to the hotel and I was going home. Bikers are banned on the Expressway. However you see quite a few of them going fast on it zig zagging their way through, like a lot of bikers do as you well know. And one such biker came and hit our bus from the side. Consequences: The biker fell, lost consciousness, admitted to the hospital, with head injuries, multiple fractures etc etc etc...
And what happened to my bus driver. He spent two nights in jail. He lost credibility with the company. He also had to spend 20K for the medical expenses and for the Police. No matter what I said could save neither the money nor the shame nor the ignominy of what happened that night. I saw the whole incident and the biker was 200% at fault. And this despite a ban being in place!

Hello! How does riding slow make you less vulnerable? Any vehicle moving much slower than other vehicles makes them more susceptible to behing hit from behind. If anything, riding at the same speed or slightly faster than other vehicles keeps you safer than being a sitting duck.

No more indisciplined than the average car driver. I don't usually notice bad cagers because i usually pass them before i have a chance. But when i'm driving a car, that's when i see how bad they are. And most of them think they're on two wheels anyway, they way they cut others off and slip in and out of lanes.

So from this one example, the conclusion is all bikers are bad and should be banned? How many lorries have you seen doing 30-40 in the fast lane? What about them then? Ban em too, so the mercs can drive faster. The point is india has a whole has some of the most undisciplined roads users anywhere. The fact is the mumbai police banned bikes on the jj flyover just to reduce crash statistics which somehow seem to reflect poorly on them.

U-Turns are prohibited at Toll Roads, so that people don't evade the toll payment, in any case.
Its easier for bikes to take U-Turns and ride above the footpaths for the same purpose. For Cars, its practically impossible... (Maybe this is the reason?)

-->
Actually, I'm a biker who has valid license, 35,000 kms experience, and had 0 Accident (s), 0 Challan (s) and 0 arguments on road (s).

Forget Toll Roads, Why should I be banned on those Expressways and flyovers? Hmm......

I racked my brain, still can't understand this "generalized ban".
So Ken bhaiya, What's that "very good reason" you have in mind, for this?

---
@ julianpaul: Good post man. I believe in your methodology of solving problems...!

sorry to quote you but you talking about some 1,100,000,000+ normal people here.

Nothing can change the way we countrymen live, think or in this case ride/drive in one night. not atleast with another blimmin' law or traffic rule.

Hypothetically, even if a new regulation is passed for driving test and step-through licensing, it will take another 5-8 years, just to gauge the results, let alone make that system a complete success, designed for such a highly dense on road population.

I have mixed opinion about the idea of removing two-wheelers/motorcyclist (more appropriate word and less offending) from expressways. Maximum numbers of motorcyclist (definitely more than 95%) at any given time on any highways are on regular bikes (thats Kinetic Nova to any ZMAs,Pulsars) which are small, light, unnoticeable, slow and highly unpredictable. To add on to that, 99% in those 95% go bare skin on road, now compare a crashed cager to a fallen motorcyclist in that scenario.

We should see this debate from both prospective and not just from a passionate/pro biker point of view. Imagine a road just for 2wheelers but was allowed to shared by pedal bikes/cyclist as well, same lanes, same rules. The odd ones are always easy to pick.

The first thing that comes to my mind as a solution are "dedicated lanes" but again, I am talking about chasing a chicken in a straight line.

Moving on, another concept that could be considered is to differentiate "capable" bikes from small vehicles according to engine displacement but then I am not sure who will decide and recognize those vehicles, unless the toll plaza has a big database for such vehicles, which is again a pain in the neck.

so if it so hard to find a quick solution, then the best thing is to.... well, thats what the judge just said.

A significant part of the two-wheeler commuters knows no proper rules and traffic sense ride randomly on roads like a stray rubber ball. These pose a bigger threat on expressways where cars speed at triple digits. I guess this is what Ken wants to say. In this point of view, I agree with banning two-wheelers on expressways. But, is banning just the solution? It is with commonman's tax they construct those roads, and in our contry commonman's transport is mostly two-wheeler. Show the bikers a seperate way and do not allow cars in that lane. When expressways are constructed, construct sperate ways for car and bikes.

It is just one example. I can give you one hundred. But what is the point. This is becoming more of an argument rather than a healthy discussion.

Even if this were possible/feasible, how could you be sure that just because the vehicle is high-powered, the rider is a safe & responsible one?

This sounds like a great idea and would definitely work well, if we were a country that did things the right way. Sadly, the reality is from from ideal. I mean, if a sealink takes 5 years more than the proposed time to build, and then at the end of it you find that only half of it is actually ready, do you really think that something like building dedicated bike lanes is going to happen? Is the golden quad completely complete? Or are there still little bits left? And if there is no money to be made from two-wheelers, why would they even bother considering lanes for them in the first place. Secondly, even our regular lanes don't really makes sense. The width is usually far from ideal and they merge in and out seemingly at random. Driving in the middle-east, I found that one can maintain a 100+kmph and stick to one lane, no matter if you're going through roundabouts or intersections. Here the lanes are sometimes so narrow, even midsize cars tend to break them when taking turns, and it's not just because they don't know lane discipline.

This is exactly what i've been trying to say over the last few pages. Can you say with absolute conviction that the above statement you made holds only to bikes? And a majority of cagers are proper disciplined drivers? That's why this looks more like picking on bikers rather than improving road safety.

Absolutely right. Which is why i'm not saying any more on the subject. And even if we were having a discussion, what's the use? What's going to change? Nothing, if even we as a biking community can't see through the BS and try to educate about the right things.

so thats what I thought....... they'll monitor who has paid or not....... nothing more nothing less........ I think Mumbai-Pune Expressway is that much techno........

corruption grows because of ignorance n not knowing the proper rules........ please don't take it otherwise, but just a doubt........ if the bikes are banned then does the biker had to pay anything or did he went all clean....... was there any case registered against him........ did he had to appear in the court........ did you followed up till the end for the case....... and it was really bad luck for the bus driver........

why are you considering the whole population....... ok 99% of them don't know the rules........ but does the 1% try to talk about the rules with the persons near to them........ did they try to teach them the proper way of judiciary........ thats why nothing can change ........

earlier at Hyd, I thought driving their is dangerous...... people don't follow any rules........ but Pune is dangerous........ they follow rules but they don't know driving......... any Uncle on his 100s or any kid on his anything, ride in such a way that they gonna fall........ they dont even use hand signal, let aside the blinkers........

Thats it! +1 Ken bhai.