Driving in India

Obstacle Course of Dogs. The one in the front has a broken leg already. They never learn.


Overloaded is just right.


Speaks for itself.



Notice the guy doesn't move as the car passes. Easier to lose a foot that way.


My Gluteus Maximus is strong as steel now. No, I haven’t been exercising, or climbing the Himalayas, it comes from clenching and unclenching my butt cheeks as a car in the opposite lane passes or we pass as well. To top it off, no matter how much space and time you have, it is a law that you can only miss the other car by half a millimeter. The long drives produce about forty heart stopping, sphincter locking, incidents an hour.

Oddly enough all this tension sometimes knocks me unconscious. The constant adrenaline charge overtaxes my system and I pass out after an hour or so. That’s really quite amazing when you think about it, sleeping through the danger. But the human body can only take so much.

I’ve been in India now for 20 days and been in two car accidents. You realize of course that if I stay here a year that’s 36 accidents a year. The first occurred when we were driving from Agra to Delhi. We went screaming through an intersection, there were no lights, stop signs, roundabouts, or anything, and a motorcycle wasn’t paying attention. Hell, nobody pays attention. We came through so fast he hit our rear wheel and broke our hubcap. Of course we only saw that later when we stopped for gas.

We were already 30 meters on before we had a chance to look around and see if the motorcyclist was okay. I’d seen him coming and crouched for impact, the crunch was right next to me. I couldn’t tell who was who in the mangle left behind, but everyone assured me there was no problem, he was okay.

‘No problem’, that’s what everybody here tells me. It basically means, ‘If I have to actually look at the situation objectively then I might come to a conclusion that does not profit me. Therefore I merely assure you there is no problem, do not engage you, and hope you passively accept that I’m telling the truth. This benefits you because if I am wrong you can blame me rather than yourself for being so stupid to believe me.’

In this case I was a little relieved we didn’t stop. If we had returned and they’d seen a Westerner, everybody within a hundred feet would have fallen to the ground and claimed we’d hit them and I’d spend the rest of my life handing out Rupees.

There’s only one thing that prevents the entire country from being wiped out in traffic accidents and that is the underpowered vehicles do not allow for high speeds. It takes about 3 hours to go 60 miles so you can see we don’t get up to speed that often. That said, four people were killed in front of the office last week. Four out of 1.2 billion, nobody cares.

Do the police say, “We’re sick and tired of picking up dead bodies?” Do the relatives say, “We want something done, we don’t want this happening to somebody else?” Nope, there’s plenty more people where they came from.

People here regard driving as a joy ride instead of the dangerous occupation it is. Everybody is casually oblivious that anybody else shares the road with them. No matter how many lanes a road may have all of them are used by a driver. If somebody else really wants to pass they will honk.

Honking in the U.S. means, ‘Get out of the way you stupid moron or I’ll mow you down!’, in India it means, ‘I’m coming up on your right, please don’t kill me.’ India still hasn’t thrown off British Colonialism, they still drive on the wrong side of the road, so when I say right side I mean passing lane to Americans.

And you don’t dare pass on the left side. We came upon a truck in the passing lane of a four lane road. The slow lane was empty. Rather than pass in the slow lane Gopi moved into oncoming traffic and passed that way, honking his horn the whole time to warn everybody.

“What are you doing! Why don’t you use the slow lane, it’s empty!” I screamed.

“In India it’s better to not do something people don’t expect!” he yelled back.

People expect you to do crazy things here.

Personally I think everyone smokes a joint before they get on the road. We’ll be on a four lane road (two in either direction) and the person in front of you cannot figure out for the life of them why they built such a wide road and feel it is their duty to weave all over it in order to use it all. You come up behind them and blow your horn to ask them to stop riding the white line in the center.

And it’s not like lanes are not marked, they are, with invisible paint. It is visible only to Westerners. I don’t know why they bother. But this is quite useful when there is traffic as you can create as many lanes as necessary to get by.

We were on a two lane road once and hit a traffic snarl of about a hundred vehicles at a one lane bridge. Yes, a one lane bridge, quite a debacle. On our side there were now four lanes, and four coming from the opposite direction, all trying to get in front of the other guy. To top it off, everyone is honking because they were frustrated they could not get through. Our driver somehow made a fifth lane, that’s right, a fifth lane on a two lane road in a town, and we zipped in front of everyone and across the bridge. I was amazed.

Wealthier people employ driver’s here, especially for their families. Driving is a skill that takes years to hone. Gopi’s friend gave him one of his drivers.. It turned out the guy was pretty good. But then he just stopped showing up, which is why the friend dumped him on Gopi to begin with, he was unreliable.

Then, when the driver needs money he just calls up and begs for his job back. Actually he doesn’t beg, he accuses Gopi of not calling for him. There’s never a credible explanation why he didn’t show up. But again, everyone is at the mercy of the lower classes. If they don’t show up then we don’t go anywhere.

Last night Gopi was backing out of a parking space, now don’t think there are parking space lines or anything, even if there are, they are ignored, and at the same time a Sikh guy was backing out of his space. So we’re all backing out at odd angles.

Neither of them were paying attention. I was the one who noticed the other guy and told Gopi. He honked his horn, but the other guy is used to hearing horns, it can’t be for him, I watch him as he continues to look forward, not behind him, or in his mirror, and continues backing out.

The truly amazing part of this was I observed the entire event from start to finish. I saw the guy get in his car, I knew we were backing out, I saw him put his car in reverse, but it never occurred to me that both drivers were oblivious to their surroundings. In the U.S. you presume somebody is paying a modicum of attention, at least the guy with the most expensive car. It wouldn’t have taken much to have avoided it. But these guys were lost in their own reefer haze.

He hit us in the left rear bumper and side. Then he pulled forward, we pulled forward, and discussed the issue. He denied it was him that hit Gopi. Brother Sikh, I’m so disappointed, I thought you guys were better than that. You are lying right through your teeth. It couldn’t be more obvious. I watched you. Oh, I forgot, everybody smokes a joint before getting in a car, you were probably spaced out and didn’t even notice. You couldn’t understand why your car wouldn’t go any further. I guess I should be surprised you didn’t give it more gas, “Gee, what am I stuck on?”

(Postscript: After returning to America I saw an Indian girl in a Driver’s Training car in my neighborhood and her instructor was and old Sikh guy. My heart skipped a beat.)

Gopi didn’t put up a fuss as there was no point, the guy would call three of his friends, Gopi would call three of his friends, tons of time and effort would be wasted over the next two years, all to no avail. I had half a mind to kick a huge dent in the guy’s door and say, “No, it wasn’t me”.

This is where the Second Amendment comes in handy. Knowing the other guy may be packing heat on the road definitely keeps you on your toes in the U.S. Road rage has its advantages. Just cutting someone off means you’re possibly taking your life in your hands, so you think twice. Nobody would think about doing these stupid things in America, if the accident didn’t kill you, the other driver would.

Of course the best one is when entire families will load up on a motorcycle, father driving, kid between, mother on back with baby on her lap and one kid clinging to the handle bars. The youngest I’ve seen is three years old, sitting in front of his dad, oblivious that death is only a small pothole away. Gopi says that he used to think that was normal, now he would never ride with his child like that.

Some of the girls drape one arm over their boyfriend’s shoulder in a manner that assures if she goes down she brings him down with her. There’s nothing like true love.

As far as motorcycle helmet laws go, freedom of religion kicks in. Sikh men wear turbans. Technically there’s nothing I’ve heard of, and I asked, that they HAVE to wear a turban, it’s just that with all that hair it looks better and is a cultural thing. Similar to the veil for Muslim women, Muhammad’s wife didn’t wear a veil, it became a cultural symbol later.

So with a turban they cannot wear a helmet. This got the Sikh men exempted through freedom of religion. But somehow the Sikh women said it was part of their religion too, so they got exempted. Except you cannot tell a Sikh woman from a Hindu woman from her appearance, they don’t wear turbans. So basically no women get stopped for not wearing a helmet, so none do. The only ones that have to wear a helmet are Hindu men. Darwinism is alive and well on the Indian roads.

In America I always presume everybody out on the road is trying to kill me, this keeps me on my guard. But while I presume somebody may not be paying attention, I also presume they don’t want to die. This is the advantage of being raised Christian, we think we only get one life so we’d better be careful with it.

But in India, with all those people believing in reincarnation it is obvious people really aren’t too concerned about this life. This is made crystal clear when I see motorcycles going the wrong way in a roundabout. When you know you’re coming back again, why put forth a lot of effort into safe driving? Besides, in the next life you might upgrade to a car instead of a motorcycle.

In Chandighar they decided to tell people how long it would be until the light turned green. There is a digital second clock that counts down the seconds to green. Of course this just means ‘GENTLEMEN START YOUR ENGINES!’. Everybody then takes off with about six seconds to go. After all, it will be green in six seconds, why waste time?

There’s only one traffic law, ‘Might makes Right’. Bikes give way to motorcycles to autorickshaws (three wheeled vehicles) to cars to trucks. The key is to only pull out in front of someone weaker than you.

One time in Delhi our driver decides to whip a U-turn in the middle of a busy downtown street.

“Go up to the next roundabout! It’s only 30 meters away!” I yell. After all, roundabouts are built-in U-turns right? I try not to yell at the driver, but even one percent of the near misses is a lot of yelling. One time I grabbed the wheel and that didn’t go down well, but this time I’m in the back seat.

“It’s not dangerous”, says Kovi, and the driver pulls the U-turn risking life and limb in order to avoid a safer method which would take another forty seconds.

“Krishna save me”, I mumble.

Kovi’s right though, driving in India is not dangerous, it’s only dangerous if somebody kills you.

Forget those Indy race car games, someone should come up with a 3-D Indian driving video game. I guarantee a great adrenaline rush!