IRT World's most Dangerous Roads

Did anyone see "IRT World's most Dangerous Roads" on History Channel,it's about 3 US Truckers who come to India to drive the most dangerous routes in Himalayas. Last night they drove over Rhotang pass from Manali to Keylong,they spent the night in Keylong to wake up the next morning 7 find everywhere covered in snow. Tonight they attempt to drive back in the snow.
Last week they were driving up kinnaur & Baspa valley to Kuppa & Karcha Dam's & traversing "The Ledge" they also take 2statues of Kali upto Kalpa.
See Here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_JLtET19vs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu3RE...feature=relmfu
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7JAc...eature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Fdb...eature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYrNc...eature=channel

Interesting! but i think they have edited cleverly to make it appear dangerous than it is actually. I've been on that road and i did feel a bit eerie a couple of times but nothing dangerous.

They just want to make stories out of nothing..the most dangerous road in India IMO is the mumbai pune expressway.

So true! Or maybe Pune-Ahmednagar..

Traffic in HP is so regulated considering drivers being in their limits and not overtaking at unsafe turns.
Pune solapur too is bad.

Manali - Leh regularly features in the most dangerous roads in the world. I have done it couple of times and its an experience of the lifetime.

I'm glad I'm not the only one whom that road scared the $hit out of. Those experienced truckers shared many of the same fears & thoughts that I did upon travelling it. And, pardon their french, expressed it exactly as I would have.

Let's be perfectly frank, the road is full of danger. It's not just the hairpin turns, guardless dropoffs & leadfoot truckers hellbent to meet an agenda - it's the fact that the road is always a foot to narrow when/where you need it most. Which inturn causes those ubiquitous traffic jam blockages, culminating in many thread-the-needle, scrape by scenarios - that all those travelling this freefall highway have experienced.

What I didn't know was the increasing weight load carried by those tata trucks ( often > 6 tons) has a weakening effect on these narrowish, not well engineered nor reinforced roads(especially so when parked or jammed for several minutes at a time on the outside lane) & the accidents that happen are often caused by the road giving out to these excessive loads.

With Hydro-electric projects, increased industrial activity & population - the wear & tear on these routes can only increase.

The other thing I like about this series is the fact that the truckers are all India 'first timers'. Some of what comes out of their mouths is not exactly compassionate or kind .... but it is unrehearsed, first time reactionary, as it happens & for the most part uncensored. Their descriptions & observations about the India roads & driving etiquette is dead accurate in my books .... albeit in a sort of southern red-necked vernacular sort of way.

Imagine for a first time India experience having to drive the 'freefall freeway' in a Tata truck with a camera & mike stuck in your face?


Not in your life.... priceless stuff!

Sheesh... the city traffic is lunatic enough. I wouldn't take my little Swift on those mountain roads, let alone anything bigger.

As to what anybody has to say about those taxi guys with the yellow number plates is bound to be true, and very often, it just cannot be rude enough. Only thing worse is bikers.

well, I have taken my little car over those roads, and I am a biker too

Yeah - I caught these episodes on the TV too.

The guys really couldn't get their heads around road etiquette at all! Some poor guy almost got punched for trying to overtake them. Much offence taken by them for his use of the horn. You would have thought someone on the production team would have mentioned the differences?

I agree some sections were spiced up for the TV - but then I suppose that is to be expected.

I kept watching the TV, looking at the camera shots and thinking "Oh - I recognise that bit"

The roads in India illustrate one of the great terrible truths of our time, which is that the poor and powerless share the same fatal defect as the rich and powerful - an inability to look farther ahead than the next bend in the road.

True. But it is reality TV. Camera in face + unrehearsed reaction = biggest bang for buck. Why Indians think that incessantly blowing the horn on those switchback traffic jams in the high himalayas will expediate the situation in a effective/efficient way - is beyond me let alone a newly arrived yankee trucker.

It was very apparent that the truckers were quite stressed, particularly in certain situations. The horn honking is not something that a North American truck driver would or could get accustomed to easily upon a first time experience to India. It is antiproductive to everything they've been taught or experienced.

They were trying to reduce stress they only way they knew how .... by going into verbal road rage mode.

Fair points Peak,

It's all very well me giving my expert opinion while sitting in a comfy chair in an air con office eh?

You know what kind of biker I mean --- and you probably know that the sensible, sane ones, are pretty hard to find on the roads of Chennai. They are there, and, of course, their very sanity makes them least likely to be noticed.

I'd love to have the courage for that sort of driving, but I know how I feel when I have to drive up close to a ditch on a narrow road: I couldn't even stand on the edge of a mountain road and look over the side, let alone drive it

There isn't much, to be frank. I used to think it would be different driving on roads like that, because mountain drivers in India did show some common sense. I don't know what Shashank thinks of this one --- actually, he might have been one of the people that disillusioned me on this?

It isn't any kind of etiquette that allows people to tailgate at 60kph, honking madly, just because they resent your presence in front of them --- despite the fact that there is another car in front of you, and another few hundred in front of them.

India's roads show India in the worst possible light, both at the personal level, of those of us to be found driving on them, and at the official level, in that nothing serious is done, or planned to be done, or even thought about being done about it.

Bypasses get planned and built; flyovers get planned and built; highways get planned and built. Road safety, education, enforcement gets ... nothing.

Manmohan Singh may have sleepless nights over the the 2G scam, the CWG scandal, etc etc etc. I want to know why he doesn't have sleepless nights over the people dying on the roads? No politician or party is going to stop the functioning of parliament pending road safety improving.

Err.... this is a topic I'm prone to ranting on. You might have noticed