Roshni Sharma's style of riding a bike

Following are the words of Ms.Roshni Sharma (28) and her style of riding a bike:



I have been asked many a times “What is my riding style” and I felt I should just share some of the things I follow that probably define my riding style.

So, what is my riding style?

I have seen people riding for years and still they lack simple road sense, riding sense and are not even considerate while on roads. Like many other things in the world, biking is also a mind game and it’s not just about learning the skills. When on the road, a good biker is 100% on the road not just physically but mentally. Every single action must take into consideration people and things around you and you must command and control your bike as if it’s your slave. Most important of all, you should know and trust your own abilities.

Apart from acceleration, brake and control are among the most important techniques. You must understand your bike so well that you can feel every single move while you ride. When you are shifting your gears or applying the brakes, you should be able to imagine and feel what’s actually happening inside your bike.

Never ever ignore your safety gears, not just any helmet but make sure it’s a DOT certified full face helmet that fits well.
So, how do I check if my helmet fits well?
I usually wear balaclava or some kind of band underneath my helmet. On top of it when you wear the helmet, shake your head up down and right left. Make sure helmet doesn’t move or slip much when you move your head. That’s it. As simple as that, I follow this as a check when I buy a new helmet.

On the road, I am alert, ready to react quickly and considerate to everything around whether it’s a pedestrian, cyclist, 2 wheeler or small or big vehicles.

A smart biker will never get rid off the side mirrors to get a stylish look. Side mirrors are as important as a headlight in the dark. Pay attention to the honk and react responsibly to it based on situation. You can always ignore them when you are at a signal that has just turned green and some dumb driver desperately keeps honking as if the world is going to end.

No matter how good you are at multi tasking, talking on phone and riding at the same time is a big NO. I don’t remember a single time when I have done that. Kill your careless instincts and just park your bike to the side before trying to pull out your cell from the pocket. I am sure you would not want to end up yourself or to send someone to the hospital just for the sake of one quick call. Same goes with listening to music while riding and it’s a certain distraction no matter how low the volume may be or you may be using just one ear plug. It directly cuts you off from your surrounding and your mind will tend to confuse between sounds and ignore important signals.

Maintain at least 20-30 feet gap from the vehicle ahead. This will help you avoid any panic braking and will give you time to anticipate and read the mind of the driver ahead. I personally also take a note of the vehicle that is in front of the vehicle in front of me and it certainly helps. It’s more like trying to gauge how the vehicle in front of you will react much in advance.

Have a broader visibility of at least around 50 meter on all directions; imagine you are at the center of a circle with a radius of 50 meter. Most of the accidents while turning and over taking can be avoided by keeping this small tip in mind. Shockingly in 90% of the accidents it’s someone else’s fault for which a victim has to pay with his broken bones. So, always make sure no matter how safe or smart driver you are, keep a note of any sudden change of events around you and be prepared to act promptly and intelligently. Just as an example, sometimes you may feel completely safe to overtake but the driver ahead of you may do something stupid and completely unexpected. Need not to mention how disciplined Indian drivers are.

Now, very often riding on Indian highways at a high speed we come across a situation where out of nowhere a dog, cattle or even a human may appear in front of you. By the time you can figure out what’s happening, it’s usually too late and out of panic the first thing you do is to apply the brakes. Not a very good thing to do especially if the speed is high. Judge the situation and simply alter the speed, slightly turn the handle or use your body to change the direction and just pass by the object.

During my recent trip, I was riding at around 100 km on NICE road when all of a sudden a dog came in front and instead of applying brakes I left my throttle, reducing the speed, and judging the speed of the dog I twisted to the right slightly and passed by. It all happened in a matter of seconds but brakes would have made it really bad.

Honk but responsibly. PLEASE honk on blind curves to avoid killing someone.

Handle the gears gently and smoothly. While shifting from any upper gear to say 1st gear, you shouldn’t struggle with too many sounds. If that’s the case, please visit a mechanic and get it sorted and if it still does, than certainly mend your ways.



This is purely the way I ride and my experiences. Everyone has their own style but make sure safety for you and your fellow co-riders should be of utmost importance. I have travelled thousands of miles all alone and on the worst and most dangerous terrains but by God’s grace I am all safe. I have fallen down sometimes but always because of the way I apply brake, however I have improved now especially after the Kerala trip.

No matter how good these tips are and how smart driver one is, sometimes fate takes control but I can assure by taking precautions and always following safe practices one can drastically reduce the risks and keep roads safer.

Pollution spikes during Delhi's odd-even experiment: The odds are even to clean the air in our cities

The pilot phase of the much publicised odd-even scheme in Delhi is now over. Besides Delhi, comprehensive plans are urgently needed to improve air quality across several Indian cities, such as Patna, Gwalior, Raipur, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Ludhiana and Amritsar. Although policy interventions primarily target air pollution, it is important to note that traffic congestion has significant economic costs to society .How did Delhi fare on metrics of air quality and congestion ­ and what lessons should other cities draw from the experiment?
The stationary air pollution monitors of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) indicate that average (ambient) PM 2.5 levels increased from 216 µg m3 (26 ­ 31 Dec) to 331 µgm3 (1 ­ 6 Jan) and subsequently declined to 308 µgm3 (7 - 11Jan). As per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) PM 2.5 levels that exceed 250 µgm3 correspond to an Air Quality Index of `Severe'. These levels affect healthy people and cause greater distress to those with existing heart or lung disease.
However, a spike in air pollution is not a predictor of failure just as a decline does not indicate policy success. This is because, in the short term, air pollution levels are dominated by meteorological conditions such as winds, rain and temperature.

While establishing a relationship between reduced car numbers and pollution levels is tenuous, the impact on traffic and congestion is purely a function of compliance levels. In order to understand the traffic mix during the odd-even experiment, the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) monitored traffic volumes at five important stretches across New Delhi for three weeks (the week before and two weeks of the implementation). In the morning peak (9 am ­ 11 am) we observed that overall vehicle counts increased (by 10%) in the two weeks of January , as compared to the last week of December. However, taxis, 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers and private buses contributed significantly to this increase. The increase ranges from 12% for 3-wheelers to 138% for private buses. This does suggest increased use (or availability) of these alternate modes of transport.

However, the number of private cars remained unchanged.Anecdotal experiences (documented in social media) suggest that commuters experienced lesser congestion on the roads. Congestion data (as recorded from Google Maps), on the other hand, suggests that the travel times were not statistically different between the last week of December and the first week of January .The available metrics are confounding and no definitive conclusion can be made, on the impact of the scheme on traffic and congestion as well. One conjecture is that the baseline chosen for comparison (last week of December) does not represent typical Delhi traffic.

What can other cities learn from this large social experiment?
The absence of conclusive evidence is in large part due to the lack of precise measurements over longer periods of time and across locations. Such short-term policies must be evaluated in a robust framework that focuses on improved measurement at its core.

Despite the short lead time available to prepare for a full-scale monitoring, we also installed low-cost pollution sensors at five locations. We find that the readings (for PM2.5) closely follow those from DPCC (located in the vicinity of our sensors). There is a need to create a network of such low-cost sensors across our cities, and to make residents aware of pollution levels in their respective localities.

Secondly , we need to have more regular source apportionment exercises to understand the changing contributions to pollution from different sources such as waste burning, industrial kilns, road dust, construction, power plants, etc., besides vehicular pollution.In the ideal world, we should be able to characterise the sources of pollution in real time. It would then be possible to understand whether the contribution from vehicles to overall pollution declined due to such policy experiments.

This information would be useful for policymakers to address local area sources of pollution, and empower citizens to take precautionary measures when pollution levels spike. Delhi's experiment, therefore, remains instructive in the bigger battle against pollution in India.

The writers Hem Dholakia and Karthik Ganesan are researchers at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water , New Delhi.

(Source: 2016-01-19 The Times of India, Kolkata)