Driving in India

Driving in India surpasses anything we've seen elsewhere!! Roads are poor, and we've not seen government initiatives to build new roads. On the rare private, good, divided highways, we see cows, pedestrians, camels, bicycles, auto-rickshaws, competing with cars, buses, and large trucks for the same space. Cows laying down in the fast lane of a 4-lane divided highway can't be a good thing.










Cows are sacred, and completely untouchable. They routinely walk down the middle of the highway, or lay down to rest in the road. In Varanasi, one bull wandered into a mens clothing shop (picture above, on right), and both the proprietor and the customers were honored and delighted. (And we now know, for certain, that cows go up and down stairs.) Other animals, especially goats and donkeys, are accorded similar deference.

Other than that, size rules. Trucks and buses go anywhere they want, and everybody else pretty much has to get out of the way. Everybody leans on the horn, and whomever gets their nose in front goes first. There's a popular saying that to be a good driver in India one needs three things: good brakes; a good horn; and good luck!

In Delhi, in city traffic, many cars fold their mirrors in (when you need them most?!) because vehicles pass so closely that they would get torn off. In the rural areas, at higher speeds, it's just as crazy.

There are staggering numbers of people. Every bus is jammed, often with people on top. Outside Khajuraho we saw 17 people in (or clinging to) a small auto-rickshaw designed for 3 people.

There are hundreds of millions of bicycles in India. Not fancy, fixed gear, practical bikes, but there are throngs of them in both cities and rural areas. But they're frequently forced off the road by vehicles.

Far less than 1% of the population currently owns a car. Auto companies are trying to sell cars in India for ~ $2000. That's still a huge amount of money for most of the population (hundreds of millions of people make less than $2 per day), but if even 5% of the people drove cars, mortality rates would skyrocket. Roads range from OK to poor to much worse, and there are very few national road-building projects. We saw sidewalks only in Delhi. Even good roads are often only one paved lane, so trucks, buses, and the few autos are all fighting to stay on the road at the same time. And woe be to the myriad of pedestrians and other vehicles that happen to be in the immediate area.