Do you really reach your destination quicker?

7 May 2011 36 Comments

Try this if you haven’t till now :

Day 1 : Drive to your destination while respecting each and every speed limit.

Day 2 : Drive to the same destination, but now push the accelerator pedal harder, driving much above the authorised speed limit

I don’t know if you will agree with me, but in most cases, you will probably reach your destination only 5-15mins earlier as compared to driving within the speed limits. Different reasons can explain why the time difference is not a such big deal.

While the motorway network to and fro the central part and the southern part of the island will allow you to have a larger time difference, same cannot be said for the northern motorways.

Our road infrastructure has worsen even more ever since the installation of an exaggerated number of speed humps and roundabouts at very close distances. Very often, speed humps are found in areas where it does not really make any sense or contribute to the safety in that region. I have also noticed speed humps being installed a few days following an accident on that same spot. I have a doubt about their efficiency, especially if speeding was not really the cause of the accident.

Did you know that according to an article of l’express (February 2010), Mauritius detained the world record with over 3500 speed humps?

On top of that, we have the increasing number of vehicles (currently over 300,000 vehicles) on our roads, contributing to the growing traffic jams in several regions. Authorities have failed to understand why people prefer to travel by their own cars instead of using public transport systems. Instead of improving the bus service (mostly known to be very bad), they are still pondering over the possibility to introduce metro leger, the dedicated bus lanes and whether entrance to Port Louis should be paying or not.

Respect your speed limit and drive carefully, reach your destination safely. However, a small push of your adrenalin level from time to time won’t be deadly if you drive carefully and be responsible while you are handling your vehicle ;)

What do you think? Do you really reach your destination quicker?

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yurit0s

Speed hump story. = aprÃ¨s la mort la tizane
http://faisalmooraby.blogpsot.com Faisal…

You are very right with the speed thing and I should say 15 minutes is a very optimistic figure. Even in the UK, it does not make sense to drive way over the speed limit.

The last time I was in Mauritius, I noticed that most drivers think that they are Lewis Hamilton. It’s all to show off and I honestly think it’s a stupid way to drive.

As for the speed humps, the government wants the easy way out and speed humps on motorways are probably more of a danger than a deterrent in my opinion.
din3sh

I think we have a bunch of stupid road ‘engineers’ who do not have an once of logic. Its not rocket science that the unbelievable number of of roundabouts on the motorways are a real source of traffic jam.

Why even build construct 1000 roundabouts and place policemen at peak hours to ‘regulate’ traffic flow? If we build roundabouts or traffic lights and still have to place policemen on those site, clearly the designs of our traditional roundabouts are obsolete. Having beautiful flowers planted in the middle of a roundabout doesn’t make it a properly designed one.

Do authorities even design roundabouts according to standards? I don’t think so. One blatant proof is the “Tianli” roundabout. Was that even constructed according to a plan/design? Why have that roundabout at that place? Is a main roundabout at Jumbo not enough? Couldn’t the road leading to Tianli zone have been linked directly to the main roundabout through the road going parallel to Jumbo? There are so many other such examples throughout the island am sure.

Positioning of Traffic lights (just as speed-humps) also leave a lot to be desired. In the region I live, there’s a speed-hump 30mts after a dangerous curve. Maybe the authorities thought people would drive round the dangerous curve at 100km/hr. Also there’s a new traffic light near Terre Rouge Kovil, 20 mts before a Bus-stop in one direction and 15mts before a busy junction in the other direction.

You add to that, the brainless measure of speed cameras at Pailles, total fiasco of fire extinguisher, and of course number plate, you will find that although we have like 300,000 vehicles on our roads, that’s not the main reason for traffic jams. The reason is that we have incompetent people taking decisions pertaining to road/traffic management. We contribute via road tax, (increased) fitness fee for roads in poor condition, 40,000 speed-humps, poorly designed roundabouts, poorly positioned traffic lights BUT ASLO their huge salaries….
Vikash Madhow

More people need to leave their cars in the garage and travel by bus whenever possible. I’ve been doing that lately and travel to work by bus 4 times per week. I’ve found that it is as fast as the car (if you leave home early enough) and almost stress-free; I no longer have to care about the traffic jam since I’m deep into my book then.

It’s definitely not as comfortable as or as convenient as the car though, but since it costs 5 times less and it’s easier on the planet, that was an easy decision.
Bernardo

“Try this if you havenâ€™t till now :

Day 1 : Drive to your destination while respecting each and every speed limit.

Day 2 : Drive to the same destination, but now push the accelerator pedal harder, driving much above the authorised speed limit”

In this form or another, you should not encourage or ask your readers to break the laws!
http://pramoduniverse.com/ Pramod

C vrai, it makes no sense to drive a car faster than the speed limit these days. Just that I find the speed cameras placed for the traffic coming from the south to port-louis is not really necessary with the three lanes available. Li trop casse l’Ã©lan dans ene la decente coumsa…
Anyway earlier we used to say: “Sorti imper tard, la route la pou imper ;libre la journÃ©e” (referring after the peak hours) Today even off-peak makes no difference at all… just imagine around 11hrs -14hrs there is a heavy traffic jam in port louis. frankly it was never like that before.
Enfin i prefer driving within my speed limits in order to avoid trouble. and frankly as stated in the post, it’s true it makes no big difference whether we drive within limits or try to push the accelerator even harder. Zis ki si nous craze accelerateur la et devant ena traffic jam… plis l’essence briler
http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

@Bernardo: I think that the readers are mature enough to understand what I am trying to prove to them.

And who is sincere enough to confess that he never actually drove above the authorised speed limit at least once?
le_voyageur

lol .. this is one true thing .. l’histoire du lievre et de la tortue ..
http://pramoduniverse.com/ Pramod

@Vikash Madhow: I do agree to Vikash Statement here since even I have been doing that since quite some time…
jp

Driving fast does not make sense on a small island. Consider the Mahebourg to Cap Malheureux trip (77km).

Driving at an average speed of 80Km/h would take 57mins, and at 120Km/h would take 38mins. A theoretical gain of 19 mins only on what we consider to be a long trip in Mauritius.

Now add traffic conditions: roundabouts, traffic lights, other cars, weather conditions, road conditions etc… I bet that would affect the overall result, huh ? ;p

HUMPS and other speed breakers, to be honest, are kinda useless and quite high on some roads. Oh, I forgot to mention one special type of speed breaker: HOLES in the roads – enough to make you slow down, try to find the best compromise to avoid them. In which regions? Everywhere! A major turn off when driving, investing in having good roads rather than focusing on the other stuff that we know about would have been far better.
Brian

Port Louis to Airport, within speed limits with light traffic: 46.04mins

Same trip, pushing hard: 17.24mins
T0rped0

@Brian:
Ahem… And what was your fuel consumption?

By staying within speed limits, I can manage a fuel efficiency of 5.5 litres / 100 km, but if aggressive driving (tailgating during peak time, hard acceleration/braking, etc), it shoots up to 7.2 litres / 100 km on a 1,300cc car. I heard that the bigger the cc-rating, the consumption shoots up exponentially…

My very humble experience is that I’ve tried to put all the theoretical formulae in traffic engineering into the Mauritian context (I had much idle time from the days I travelled exclusively by bus), but none worked / all failed.

It boiled down to a plug-flow situation: if you put a series of marbles in a tight pipe in one sequence (say, red, blue, yellow and green) and squeeze them through the entry, you are bound to get the same sequnce at the exit end (red, blue, yellow and green). Same for local traffic.

I now have fun making mental earmarks on the local Schumacher / Hamilton / Senna wannabes (always the same ugly tuned cars, bellowing and screeching and playing loud music, or some fat bastard in a luxury SUV / van 15 places / taxi) who like to slalom all their way to Port Louis, and wait until the end of the motorway: they are at most 15-25m ahead, never more than that…

My humble advice: If you want (or need) to reach somewhere important early, get on the road very early: The roads will be free, you’ll drive at ease, you are sure to reach on time, you’ll be relaxed and fresh. And you’ll be able to smile through your day…

Bonne route Ã tous!

PS: Mort aux chauffards!
T0rped0

@din3sh:
Perfect! Nothing to add (except the horrendous road-markings and lighting at many dangerous places). It’s as if the designers of RDA and TMRSU forgot their brains while doing their work (for which we pay for as tax), and still sleep when they travel along these roads… Maybe it’s true that only the worst engineers (unmotivated, seeking only their lump sum at the time of retirement) work there and at the MPI…

@Vikash Madhow:
There’s actually a guy who did final year research on this subject at UoM in 2001: his findings were for very short trips (< 2km), it's better that you go on foot or bicycle. For medium length trips (2-7km), it's faster by bus. And this may hold true for long trips when traffic is slow. The car becomes faster only at non-peak times…!
jp

@T0rped0 : +1, awesome post ^^

When I used to work at Port Louis, I took the car only on Fridays for after-work parties! 1hr traveling in traffic on 20Km is more cost efficient by bus.

Oh and about km per litre and fuel efficiency, it’s not about CC necessarily, modern mid-size cars are often more efficient than small cars. Well, it’s a half-truth depends on the load you carry, traffic conditions, distance you make etc… Check out Mpg ratings on manufacturer’s sites for honda, hyundai, toyota, mazda etc…
http://www.revheal.com/en/destinations/africa/mauritius/ sandra in mauritius

Sensible driving speed should be observed both ways. Not only do I see adrenaline junkies on the road, I also see so many turtle pace crawlers. Can someone tell me what’s up with these guys. I am shocked every time I see one of these guys moving at a snails pace. I think this type of driving is equally dangerous.
jp

Say limit is at 60 on some random road, what’s slow, respectable or fast with that value in mind?
http://banalit.es PÃ©pÃ© Le Beagle

I drive on a highly congested highway every morning and believe me, there’s no difference between driving at 90 km/h and 120 km/h as you still end in the same traffic jam at one time or another. The major difference will be that the person driving faster will increase fuel consumption and brake use.

I don’t know how traffic is managed in Mauritius, by whom and at what level but let’s be honest, there still needs to be improvement in terms of infrastructure (improvement not meaning more speed breakers but better road maintenance). The other problem is the same as in every other country: better driving education!

Everybody thinks he is a good driver. That is not true. I think that at times we are better drivers than others (depending on mood, time, weather,…). How many people have you heard saying: “you just need to drive well only once and that is during the driving test, afterwards just do as you like” ? Even the basic knowledge of highways sometimes goes down the drain in Mauritius.

A final point which is common to all countries once more. Many elder drivers have started driving when there were less cars, less limitations, less roundabouts, less everything. They’ve had their driving habits for years… difficult to change when it comes to driving at break-neck speed.
http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin

@jp: Limit = 60?

Slow might be anything < =40
Normal = 50-60
Fast = 65-70
very fast = 80
deadly fast = 100

Anyone may have their own estimates
jp

so I can say I drive at normal speeds 85% of the time and 15% fast

even that, mo gagne full phare, klaxon a koz la plipar dimoun envi depassÃ©, mem si ena la ligne blanc, virage, zot bien merde!
http://banalit.es PÃ©pÃ© Le Beagle

@Yashvin: ahemmm…. deadly depends on the country. No speed limit in Germany but that is very specific. In France, a lot of city centres (mine for example) are limited to 30 kms/h and police radars flash and fine at 32 kms/h.
jp

happened 30mins ago. Was driving in the right lane at 80Km/h (where the limit is supposed to be 50 due to ‘roadworks’) under moderate rain on the highway after Nouvelle France round about!

ene lespece 4×4 coming from behind p met so full phare lor mwa + p klaxoner a mort pou laisse li passer… this lasted for a minute or two !!! I didn’t let him go, cause it was unsafe to take the left lane at this point in time.

guess ki boug la fer ?? letemp li ressi depasse moi .. li vine met li juste devant mwa.. roule 80-90 apre li freiner sec lor 30 par la.. line fer ca 2-3 kout.. par expres zis pou montrer mwa so la guele !!!

how cute is that hey and dangerous… :S … b mo bien envi raporte figir la !!! et normal I noted his number down :p
http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin Awootar

I don’t think that lodging a complaint against him would change anything.
Some people might have done the following :
Bang into his vehicle at the back and then write a police complaint that he
suddenly braked on the fast lane.
jp

yes i know … a bit traumatized by this to know that people can be as nasty as that… too bad I was alone in the car, I would have made a video
impulsive ebay buyer

Hello! I know my name seems funny here but that’s the one i’ve been using!! sorry for that!!Â It takes 25mins for me to reachÂ reduit by car and 1h30mins when i go by bus- It’s nice to travel by bus as long as they are clean enough and you don’t see cockroaches coming out..and worse! whenÂ the bus hasÂ just left from lagar!! That was in the morning- Now on your way back when wait for the bus (which will obviously takeÂ ages to arrive, hereÂ I’m talking about curepipe bus, the one everybody waits for on reduit bus stop!). When the bus is finally hereÂ and the driverÂ decides to go on 40km/h (like he is starting to learn how to drive) this really gets on nerves and you wish you had a car!!
Pingback: Did you know? 2 out of the 4 speed camera flashes to fool you | Yashvin, pages of my life
http://profiles.google.com/akashsky Akash Gura Goredo

“And who is sincere enough to confess that he never actually drove above the authorised speed limit at least once? ”
Pas ar moi, hein. I just never do it, just because my uncle died mutilated from being dragged over 100m+ after being hit at a crossing.
And not too proud of being stubborn in remaining within the limit, because I always get insulted for doing just that: the last 1km stretch on my way to work is limited to 40km/hr. Just imagine the situation: the huge Betonix concrete lorries or CMT 15-seaters hooting/flashing me to speed up, and I smiling at their frustration… especially when the traffic police are present, pulling them up for dangerous driving.

This
is dedicated to all Hamilton wannabe’s…

Just remember that these speed limits are derived from statistics which tell a crude story: the higher the speed, the lower your probability of survival from a crash.
http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin Awootar

Ok then, you are perhaps the first one

Congrats!
selven

Sincerely, when i drive to save fuel, from L’escalier to Ebene, I take 45 Minutes (@ ~ 60 – 70KM/h)!

While when i drive to enjoy the rush, @ around 140 – 200KM/h (iwish i could reach 220KM/h but the roads are not that straight and there might be other cars on the motorway), then i take around 10 minutes (I wait a bit at phoenix coz of the round about.)
http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin Awootar

Be careful @560b4af97af5b9e6848a64ab50398843:disqus!

btw, congrats for posting the 16,000th comment
RitZZ

Hey being frank jamais mne reussi respecter limite de vitesse…mo lipie fer mal kan mo pousse accelerater la doucement!!!
http://profiles.google.com/akashsky Akash Gura Goredo

Anou mett en porgam coumha enn zour, ki ou dir?
http://www.yashvinblogs.com Yashvin Awootar

wawa! sans probl! nu organise sa!
Pingback: Alternative routes to Port Louis, from the north | Yashvin, pages of my life
http://www.facebook.com/eldergod Eldergod Selven

i use the southern motorway. If i am driving like an old man and a miser, it takes me 30 minutes from L’escalier to reach Ebene.

If i am driving the car like it should, i reach in around 9 minutes IF phoenix is not traffic jammed. Otherwise 12minutes.

Yes i’ve timed it, and most of the time the reason to drive fast is girls, these things just never understand that i am bound to late whatever i do :p.
http://www.facebook.com/eldergod Eldergod Selven

lol :p. I never drive 60-70 now :p it consumes more fuel. 80-90 is better, 30 minutes. and 160-180 makes the 9.

didn’t know i was 16,000th
http://profiles.google.com/akashsky Akash Gura Goredo

Ar 52 camera, astér-la nou-a guétté si ferr-mal ankor dan to li-pié ou bien dan to portt-féiy

howdy, dear visitor