Indian roads are a bloomin' scary place. The week after the wedding I attended the bride and groom were in an accident. I thank my lucky stars that we managed to escape the country without being involved in a car crash. I had the feeling that it was only a matter of time.
Driving with your hand on the horn constantly blaring seemed to be mandatory. Most vehicles even had an invitation to beep them painted on the back!
Here are some of the rules from the Indian Highway Code*
1. Beep your horn. When you are over taking, when you want to over take or just because the mood takes you.
2. Never look at oncoming traffic. We took a 45 minute taxi ride regularly pulling onto roundabouts without ever looking to the right to check for oncoming traffic. Frightening.
3. Drive the wrong way down the road if it suits you. We were once driven the wrong way down a dual carriage way to get back to the previous exit!
4. Never drive in your lane. It would be too sensible if you did. Weave about, just for fun.
5. Don't stop at red lights. Just drive straight through them, observing rule #2 and never checking for oncoming traffic.
6. Go the wrong way round a roundabout. Why would you drive three quarters of the way round to turn right when you could take a cheeky shortcut?
7. Drive as aggressively as you possibly can.
8. When you buy a new car remove the wing mirrors. Who looks in them anyway?
Crazily with all of this going on pedestrians walk in the road and not on the pavements!
*According to me. Might not be true.
All I can say is they're bloody maniacs. We were being driven from Agra to Delhi on a stretch of 100km/ hr freeway and you have trucks & camels towing trailers heading towards you in your lane of traffic. The complete disregard to any road signage is beyond comprehension
ReplyDeleteYikes! Sounds terrifying! Not for the faint hearted for sure.
ReplyDeleteVery true..I hope Indian authorities have eyes and ears to fix this...
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