This is Visibility Watch, our weekly look at the road stories where being seen, or not being seen, decided how the week went. Between 2 and 8 November the news ran from Delhi’s first real smog turn of the season to a cyclone’s wet aftermath on the east coast, a rear facing radar on a production motorcycle, and the official numbers that explain why we keep writing this column. Every story is linked to the outlet that reported it.
Delhi’s air crosses into very poor, 2 November
ThePrint, carrying PTI copy, reported that Delhi’s air quality index entered the very poor band for the first time this season, reading 312 at 9 am on Sunday. No rain had reached any of the city’s five weather stations in the preceding 24 hours, and the haze simply sat. For riders the lesson is physical, not political: haze scatters light and flattens contrast, and a motorcycle is already the smallest shape in a car’s mirror. Ride with the headlight on at noon, wipe the tail lamp before every ride, and double the gap.
GRAP Stage 2 arrives the very next day, 3 November
Business Standard reported the index at 331 by 7 am on Tuesday, with 41 of 58 monitoring stations above 300. The Commission for Air Quality Management invoked Stage 2 of the Graded Response Action Plan with immediate effect: higher parking fees, tighter enforcement on diesel generators, mechanised sweeping and anti smog guns on the heavy corridors, staggered office timings. When the official machinery moves to Stage 2, the smog season is officially on. Treat every evening commute from here to February as a low visibility ride, because that is what it is.
Cyclone Murasu keeps raining after landfall, 4 November
India.com reported that Severe Cyclonic Storm Murasu crossed the south Andhra coast near Ongole early on 3 November, and the rain did not stop at the shoreline. The IMD expected the system to weaken as it moved inland while heavy rain and thunderstorms continued across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and central India, with yellow alerts across 19 districts of Chhattisgarh on Tuesday and 15 on Wednesday. The days after a storm are their own hazard: debris past any bend, streetlights down where the grid is hurt, standing water that hides the road’s edge. If you must ride, lights on even at midday, slow down wherever the streetlights are dark, and park the bike when the wind picks back up.
Honda puts radar on a motorcycle, 5 November
At the EICMA show in Milan, Honda announced SENSING RIDE, a rider assist system built on a millimetre wave radar unit at each end of the motorcycle, bringing Forward Collision Warning, Blind Spot Information and Rear Collision Warning to the CRF1150L Africa Twin Adventure Sports first. The telling detail is the rear radar. One of the world’s largest motorcycle makers has decided that riders being lost from behind is common enough to engineer against. Until your next bike carries radar, that same job falls to your rear lighting: a clean tail lamp, working brake lights, and rear lighting strong enough to be noticed early.
The numbers behind all of it, 6 November
At a road safety fireside chat at IIT Madras, reported by IANS via SocialNews.XYZ, the chairman of the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety cited Ministry of Road Transport and Highways data for 2024: 1,77,177 people killed on Indian roads in the year, about 485 every day. Two wheeler riders made up 46.2 percent of the dead, and pedestrians another 20.6 percent. Read those two shares together: two of every three people lost on our roads were on two feet or on two wheels, the road users hardest to see and the least protected when they are not seen.
The week’s one takeaway
Smog, cyclone rain and ordinary November darkness all do the same thing: they shrink how early other drivers notice you. So walk around your bike once this week. Check the tail lamp, press the brake and look, wipe the reflectors, and ask honestly whether the back of your bike announces you in bad air. If you want more rear presence, a pair of strobe pods like the KROOZER Strobe Light for Bike V7.0 Pro with Brake Mode adds two bright red points low on the tail, with Brake Mode firing a fast hyperflash the moment you brake. Our guides on tail lights and reflective stickers cover the rest of the rear view.
Ride bright this week. Be visible. Be home.
