driving inspiration
Well this is a story about my early college days. It was in those days when school kids felt liberated when they came into the college. The 10+2 scheme had the +2 in a different institute, rather than having it tied up with the school which taught you till matriculation. I used to travel about 1 hour and 30 km between my home and college. And most of the time I used to avail the Orissa state government buses, either the O.S.R.T.C. or the O.R.T. buses.
Generally in the evening when I return back I take buses from the O.R.T. bus-stand from Badambadi, Cuttack. This was because my destination had buses mostly from this stand. From here too, I usually stick to the bus driven by an old man probably in his late 50s due to retire. This guy was a superb driver, he used to don a pair of glasses, probably in the range of +5 and above, since it looked like about 1cm in thickness and light was visible only at the center of the glass. With all these he used to drive the bus, a full 56 seater, 6-wheeler at 60-80kmph on a 10ft wide road. This was the road with quite some pot-holes before the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar 4-lane road came up in around 1995.
A particular instance is the way he overtook other vehicles, especially other private buses. The private buses were tough ones to overtake, as they were always in the competitive mode, never gave way to vehicles behind. They always wanted to be ahead. And those were the days when I's young ;)... and I used to occupy the front seats to witness these thrilling events. Now back to overtaking.... so he takes the bus right behind the bus ahead with about a couple of foot distance in between, and waits for the opposite side vehicles to clear. As soon as the last vehicle from the opposite side crosses, he turns the steering-wheel so that the entire bus suddenly switches lanes to be just parallel to the bus in front with the rear right-hand corner of the bus ahead only a couple of inches far from the front left-hand corner of the bus I'm traveling... and then the accelerator hits the floor and we zoom past the other bus. The timing is so perfect, the bus driver in the front is caught by surprise and can do literally nothing to prevent us from overtaking it, given the low power engines in those days.
Well that's one of the driving stints/hints I remember with enthusiasm even today....... hope the readers enjoyed!!
Generally in the evening when I return back I take buses from the O.R.T. bus-stand from Badambadi, Cuttack. This was because my destination had buses mostly from this stand. From here too, I usually stick to the bus driven by an old man probably in his late 50s due to retire. This guy was a superb driver, he used to don a pair of glasses, probably in the range of +5 and above, since it looked like about 1cm in thickness and light was visible only at the center of the glass. With all these he used to drive the bus, a full 56 seater, 6-wheeler at 60-80kmph on a 10ft wide road. This was the road with quite some pot-holes before the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar 4-lane road came up in around 1995.
A particular instance is the way he overtook other vehicles, especially other private buses. The private buses were tough ones to overtake, as they were always in the competitive mode, never gave way to vehicles behind. They always wanted to be ahead. And those were the days when I's young ;)... and I used to occupy the front seats to witness these thrilling events. Now back to overtaking.... so he takes the bus right behind the bus ahead with about a couple of foot distance in between, and waits for the opposite side vehicles to clear. As soon as the last vehicle from the opposite side crosses, he turns the steering-wheel so that the entire bus suddenly switches lanes to be just parallel to the bus in front with the rear right-hand corner of the bus ahead only a couple of inches far from the front left-hand corner of the bus I'm traveling... and then the accelerator hits the floor and we zoom past the other bus. The timing is so perfect, the bus driver in the front is caught by surprise and can do literally nothing to prevent us from overtaking it, given the low power engines in those days.
Well that's one of the driving stints/hints I remember with enthusiasm even today....... hope the readers enjoyed!!
posted by Unknown | 8:35 PM
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