...bad traffic, worse roads and even worse drivers!
The past week was Road Safety in Delhi and it feature even more corny slogans than normal to encourage safe driving. Some of my favorites are: "Get off the phone or get off the road," "Lane driving is safe driving" and "Speed thrills by kills."
You might be confused at the thought of having to remind people to drive in the lane because that's just how driving is done. But not in India. As anyone who has traveled here will agree, lanes are merely a suggestion and not required at all. In Delhi, it's completely normal to drive in the middle of two lanes.
I've talked to several friends and colleagues about the situation on the roads and it boils down to the fact that driving is viewed as a right and not a privilege here. The only concern anyone has is getting to where he needs to go and not for the person in the car behind him or the person trying to cross the road. People say it's slowly getting better. Today for instance, Ani and I were driving through the market and a car was trying to turn around in front of us blocking the way. The driver signaled for us to wait a minute. Ani patiently waited and never honked the horn. And finally, once the driver passed us, he waved 'thank you.' How nice and civilized.
Of course traffic is complicated because it's not just cars and buses on the road. You also have to compete with trucks, auto-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles, hand carts, people and cows on the roads. Everyone is telling me that I should start to drive here, but there's no way I'm ready to do that - especially since I can't really drive manual and I've never driven on the left side of the road.
For now, I will just remain petrified of Indian roads and dependent on others for my transportation needs.
The past week was Road Safety in Delhi and it feature even more corny slogans than normal to encourage safe driving. Some of my favorites are: "Get off the phone or get off the road," "Lane driving is safe driving" and "Speed thrills by kills."
You might be confused at the thought of having to remind people to drive in the lane because that's just how driving is done. But not in India. As anyone who has traveled here will agree, lanes are merely a suggestion and not required at all. In Delhi, it's completely normal to drive in the middle of two lanes.
I've talked to several friends and colleagues about the situation on the roads and it boils down to the fact that driving is viewed as a right and not a privilege here. The only concern anyone has is getting to where he needs to go and not for the person in the car behind him or the person trying to cross the road. People say it's slowly getting better. Today for instance, Ani and I were driving through the market and a car was trying to turn around in front of us blocking the way. The driver signaled for us to wait a minute. Ani patiently waited and never honked the horn. And finally, once the driver passed us, he waved 'thank you.' How nice and civilized.
Of course traffic is complicated because it's not just cars and buses on the road. You also have to compete with trucks, auto-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles, hand carts, people and cows on the roads. Everyone is telling me that I should start to drive here, but there's no way I'm ready to do that - especially since I can't really drive manual and I've never driven on the left side of the road.
For now, I will just remain petrified of Indian roads and dependent on others for my transportation needs.
1 comment:
India is'n a bad country as you may think. It is very very very good place. The best contry in the intire world. England, Australia,America and china is c*** countries.
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