Update

Feedback:
Our senior management was very receptive to the idea of using the left lane only if the intention is to turn left.

Here's what Sanjoy Sanyal, VP Professional Services and Training, SumTotal, had to say about the initiative : "Fantastic initiative! I had changed my work timings just to avoid the traffic at Cyber Towers junction. With this, the experience at Cyber Towers should get better."

Sudheer Koneru, Managing Director - India, SumTotal, said that he has instructed his driver NOT to use the left lane unless the car is taking a left turn at the junction.

Lekha Sishta, VP - HR & Talent Management, SumTotal, has given strict instructions to the company buses and cabs to not use the left lane to get close to the intersection at traffic junctions. Bus coordinators have been instructed to make sure that the drivers do not block the left lane at junctions.

Progress:
We have also ordered for t-shirts to be printed. (actually it's a contraption that looks like a sandwich placard so that it can be worn on top of a tshirt).

We're still deciding on the design of the banners. I need to come up with content for the posters.
Talks with the police have started and they liked the idea. There is supposed to be a meeting today which I may need to attend.

The Logo!!

This is the Logo for our initiative. We will print this on T shirts, posters and banners.
We're meeting the Police today. I will post the summary of the meeting tomorrow.

I've been very busy with work, that is why I've been unable to update the blog as frequently as I'd like to. No worries! We're going to make this work! The "we" includes you!

We hit the 250 mark today!

This blog was started on July 9th and it's already got 250 UNIQUE visitors!!

Please spread the word around! :)

Pics of yesterday's traffic jam

Yesterday morning, the traffic jam was beyond the Birlasoft building as can be seen in the snap here. Hopefully, if our project is successful, then people turning left at CT, will not be bothered by this.






The Change Lanes Here board should be hung on the arch that is seen in this snap.






The left lane was blocked at CT. People wanting to turn left here had to wait until some moron ,who was in the wrong lane, was able to proceed straight on the green signal.





If you have snaps or videos of the traffic in CT, please send me an email at sikhoya [at] gmail [dot] com

Meeting Summary: Plan of action

Click on this image to get a brief understanding of what we're planning to do:

In addition to folks from our office, SumTotal Systems, we also had Major Shiva Kiran, from Sukuki Gensys, join in.

Plan of action:
1. Get help of the Police to move autos from the corner in front of Shilparam to a little further ahead.
2. Create an Auto Stand in front of Wipro that will be used for a drop-pick up point for people from CT. No autos to be allowed to stop in front of CT.
3. Paint zebra crossings and lanes on all 4 roads. The colour should be something other than white, preferably fluorescent orange- so that there is immediate impact for people who see it (something different always gets noticed).
4. Get a sign board on the arch next to Wipro which will say something like " Change lanes here to turn left at CT junction".
5. Get CT to allow us to put up banners along their wall.
6. Proposed names for this initiative(pick from these or ask folks to come up with more names):

• Left Lane Free!
• Free the Left Lane!
• Right is Right!
• And I just came up with this(in keeping with techiegiri): Left Outer Join!

7. Logo still to be decided. Once points 5 and 6 are decided, T shirts to be printed.
8. Rope in a radio station in this initiative and if possible, get an article into the papers.
9. Once, we're set with this, volunteers to stand at CT on weekdays from 930 to 1030am and 6pm to 7pm, extending back up to 50-100 metres.


Action item owners: 1,2,3,4 and 5 Primary Owner: Balaji. Folks to assist Balaji: Gautam, Uttam, Nikhil and Raghav.
6 and 7: Primary Owner: Shivaram. Folks to assist Shivaram: Sameer, Sujit and Vikas
8 : Primary Owner: Lekha. Folks to assist Lekha: Sameer, Sandeep

Timelines:
Click on the image to view the tentative project plan.

Planning starts tomorrow!

So we're gonna brainstorm tomorrow and come up with a Plan of Action.

Agenda:

• Paint the lanes on the roads at CT junction, hopefully with a different colour(not white).
• Come up with a logo for this initiative.
• Design posters, banners, etc.
• Set a team in place that will implement different aspects of the plan.
  
• Talk to the Police and explain our plan and get their approval.

To quote a dialog from the Hyderabadi movie, The Angrez, "Aise kaise jaate, Ismail bhai? Puuri pilanning ke saath jaana padta"!! ...... (Pachees saal se Cyber towers main baitha huan hoon, meri koi izzat hai yaaron! )

The meeting is at 230pm at our office, SumTotal Systems. If you'd like to attend the meeting, please leave a comment with your email address or get my gmail (gtalk) details from my profile and send me an email. If you'd like to post a dialog from The Angrez, that's fine too.... I guess! :)

Address:
SumTotal Systems
7th Floor, Maximus Towers
Building 2B, Mindspace
Raheja IT Park, Madhapur
Hyderabad - 500 081

People who have signed up for the initiative

I'm going to maintain a list of folks who are interested in this initiative and, by virtue of showing interest in this, agree to leave the left lane free. ;)
1. Sameer Mehta, SumTotal Systems
2. Chintan Desai, Cognizant
3. Sujit Reddy, SumTotal Systems
4. Shivaram Kotari, SumTotal Systems
5. Radhakrishna Chaganti, SumTotal Systems
6. Vikas Kumar Sharma, SumTotal Systems
7. Santosh Damaraju, SumTotal Systems
8. Ramakrishna Raju, SumTotal Systems
9. Raghavendra Kiran, SumTotal Systems
10. Nikhil Bhargava, SumTotal Systems
11. Raghunath Ajjugattu, SumTotal Systems
12. Sandeep Patnaikuni, SumTotal Systems
13. Gautam Narayan, SumTotal Systems
14. Soumitra Pradhan, SumTotal Systems
[Edit - 4:55 pm 11th July]
15. Satish K. , Infosys
16. Priya Ramachandran, Google
17. Neha Upreti, Microsoft
18. Lekha Sishta, SumTotal Systems
19. Gayatri Devi, SumTotal Systems
[Edit - 7:oo pm 11th July]
20. Sandeep Reddy, SumTotal Systems
21. Uttam M, SumTotal Systems
22. Raghav Gangaraju, SumTotal Systems
23. Arun Kumar, SumTotal Systems
[Edit - 3:oo pm 17th July]
24. Somendra Chauhan, SumTotal Systems
25. Shaik Imam Hussain, SumTotal Systems
26. Maj Shiva Kiran, Sukuki Gensys
27. Suman Motaparthy, KPIT Cummins
28. Ajay Kumar Singh, Medrc Edutech
29. Srikrishna P, SumTotal Systems


I will keep editing this or will add new posts as and when more people join in. :)

Witnessed an accident near IIPM, Hyderabad

A man riding a new red Pulsar bike had an accident right in front of my car this morning at around 945 AM, near the IIPM building in Erramanzil, Banjara Hills. The man is safe.

A white Maruti 800 came in from the wrong side of the road and was attempting to cross over to the left hand side. The bike hit the car head on. He was helped by the folks standing around there. I helped pick up his bike which was BADLY damaged. The petrol tank was dented - the dent was a good 10 inches long and 2 inches deep. Can you imagine what would have happened had the tank not taken the brunt of the collision. The rider was wearing a helmet, that is why he is still walking. Trust me, I saw the accident and there is no way the rider could have escaped if he were not wearing a helmet.

The rider works in Ernst and Young. So if you know anyone working in E&Y, please let pass this information on to them. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get his name or phone number. A gentleman in a white Maruti Zen volunteered to take the rider to Care Hospital. Many thanks to the Good Samaritan (car's number ended in 5010, I think). Funnily, some folks thought that it was his car that banged into the bike. :)

If any of you were present at the accident site and managed to get the number of the car that caused the accident, please post a comment here. The car was a white Maruti 800, slightly old, will have dents in the front right hand side and its right indicator/headlight might have been broken.

I forgot to get my camera along today, otherwise I would have taken a snap of the car.

We get our first sponsor.

Guess what? I pitched this idea to my company, SumTotal Systems, and they're ready to sponsor T shirts, banners, stickers for cars, etc. :)
Folks from my company are interested. It remains to be seen whether techies from other companies join in in this initiative.
Please spread the word and do leave your comments.

(I think this could work)

Number of hits increasing on the blog...

Good to see that the number of hits is increasing on the blog.
If you feel that you want to participate in this, please, please do leave your comments so that I know I'm not the only one interested in hassle free driving! :)
Come on, you really can make a difference! Remember, just one small change at a time.
In a few day, I do hope to actually stand at the Cyber Towers crossing and make sure that the left lane is free, but if you folks can start practicing this from today, that's even better.

Well, well. Another person trying to make the traffic better in Hyderabad?

Yes! I know. You're like "Haven't we seen all this before? A techie suddenly decides to make things better in the world by using blogs and "web 2.0".

Actually, I'm not out to make traffic better in Hyderabad. No sir, we need Mahatma Gandhi for that. Right now, I just want to make the traffic better in Madhapur, more specifically, at the Cyber Towers junction. Reason: most of the folks who drive around this place are educated and are working in IT companies. They have the same feelings that I have every morning- angry, helpless, wondering why they didn't start 30 mins earlier to beat the traffic. So there is a good chance that these same people would want to try to make the traffic better. My fellow techies would also be in a position to force their company's cab drivers to drive responsibly.

We can start with one small change at a time. The first change really has to be to keep the left lane free for people wanting to turn left. It's simple, but can it be done?
Just follow lane driving rules around the Cyber towers area. Let me see if I can take few photos tomorrow that will help us all understand why I ask that you keep the left lane free.

Looking forward to all the help I can get from fellow techies. Hyderabad traffic is not something that only one person can influence.