multi use of extreme left lane in highways

Day before yesterday I read this story: meru cab mishap. There are many such incidences every now and then. Problems in such mishaps: Left most lane is used as:

1. high speed overtaking lane

People with recommended speed get irritated with slow moving right lane or people with higher speed than the recommended speed use the left most lane as over taking lane.

2. parking place

People just park their vehicle on their need basis. SOmetimes it is due to vehicle break as well. Most of the times these guys never put those red triangle with sufficient distance as warning. In the above article, it mentioned some warning, so it could be the case of 1 that is meru using left lane for speeding.

3. shortcut path

Yesterday I was trying to join a six lane (3+3 with divider) from 2 lane service road around 7PM. It was already dark and trying to see how is the left most lane (that is flow from back to which I am going to hit) that is my face is turned totally right and seeing the opportunity I made an entry into the left lane (in ramp up mode). Suddenly I was shocked to a see a back rickshaw with no light or with its usual low intensity head light. I had to make a stand still by giving way for it (to enter into the service lane). Probably he must have dropped somebody in the middle and decided to take this short cut (rather than going ahead and finding proper entry into service road). I have seen these things happening quite frequently. Sometimes pedestrials use left lane as walking path and it becomes very difficult to ramp up (to the traffic speed).


The above things are nothing new, but why can't we fix and be like those civilized countries. Attitude and discipline seems to be the manthra and not sure when we will get there!

centralized health care system

I have been thinking of several items but never found time to write down here. Today I make myself to put down and probably very soon on the items I thought about in the recent past.

Today I read an article in Bangalore Mirror, on "I so want to go back" and the things mentioned are so true! I feel those every day of my stay after the return. Some things like cycling (balance part) and swimming which can't re-learn in your life. Staying abroad brings a kind of awareness that it is very difficult to through away and get used to "home conditions" :-(

My six year daughter got sick a week ago and the symptoms started when I was about to start on a business trip. I thought she would be okay and my wife would be able to manage. Of course it did not happen that way and daughter got hospitalized and things became worse and cut short my trip and returned home. Daughter had certain problem and it had happened before a year ago. Due to several reasons we visited different hospitals. What happened was it is most of the time we have to tell doctor what had happened and what was diagnosed then. There is no centralized system which keeps such information. The way the hospitals and individual consultants organized, I don't see some kind of organized setup coming up in anytime future. Other possibility I can think of is user maintaining soft copy with some kind smart card (with built in memory). This also needs an interface where hospitals can enter data into it and hence not possible in near future. This smart card brings to another topic what is happening to this nation identity card, what it can be used, what can be stored, how credible it is, etc. Only time will tell. And will we ever hit social security?

Another thing is incentives model. I am somehow afraid of visiting dentist. I have some fear they always propose some treatment which brings them some revenue. And again no centralized data, and sometimes the xrays and such would be kept by the hospitals to keep stickiness to their operation, sometimes to make sure that records are kept safely, sometimes ignorance. But we usually loose the information we change the doctor, which otherwise could have been very useful.

Probably I have skewed the information to more negative way, but I feel there is a scope for improvement in the over all system! Of course meeting privacy rules is other topic for such a centralized system.