Hello lovely people . . . . . No. 21 – Al’ n And’s grey gap year adventures

INDIAN ROADS

One’s first road journey in India following, as it usually does, a tiring and extended plane ride, is likely to be an eye opening (or, more accurately, an eye closing) experience for the newly arrived visitor. One is immediately hit by the cacophony of noise from the incessant hooting of horns and the Indian drivers’ ability to create 8 lanes out of three.

In the UK, such profligate use of the horn would be accompanied by bursts of expletives and much waving of hands indicating the offending drivers’ solitary sexual proclivities. In India, by contrast, there is no road rage (subject to one exception which I will come to later). Each carving up, pushing in, frantic tooting is rewarded with an expressionless acceptance that “this is how it is” if you live in a country with 1.3 billion people. If someone is really unhappy there might be a slight, almost imperceptible, shrug of the shoulders but there is seldom any malice in it. This lack of anger is, in part, due to the complete lack of any rules and the absence of a police force that anyone takes seriously. This has resulted in an apparently self regulating system which for the most part, astonishingly, works. Toots are to advise your fellow road users that you are there, that you are undertaking or overtaking, that you have some regard for their paintwork but not very much.

The Indian driver is simultaneously the best and the worst in the world. They will use every nanometre of space on the road in order to gain the slightest advantage over the driver in front who, incidentally, will usually co- operate in this exercise by slowing down/ driving off the road etc. Any advantage is usually eroded fairly quickly by a variety of obstacles, some natural (usually cows and goats) and some artificial (barriers/speed bumps). The former are truly free range and can be encountered anywhere. The latter are helpfully located by the local authorities or police force to cause maximum discomfort/danger.

Of course, most travellers will have heard stories of trucks driving the wrong way down dual carriageways, of herds of cows and goats on the motorway and of motorways that suddenly become dirt tracks for a few miles and then miraculously reappear. Well, you shouldn’t believe everything you hear but, on this occasion, rest assured, that it is all true.

Roundabouts. I have always thought that roundabouts are a brilliant invention to regulate traffic at junctions and, indeed, they are unless you reverse the priority so that traffic coming onto the roundabout has right of way. This adjustment to the commonsensical is illustrated most terrifyingly when local buses, usually red, approach a roundabout at speed with horn blaring loudly to advise that the bus driver has absolutely no intention of slowing down, let alone giving way, to those already circumnavigating the roundabout. In any event, regardless of one’s proximity to a roundabout, always give any bus a wide berth as all buses in India are driven by psychopaths with the grinning visages of the clinically insane.

Bikes. If you are tempted by the prospect of riding the open road on your silver machine with your best girl’s legs wrapped around your engines, think again. Bikers are the lowest of the low ranking somewhere below pie dogs, goats, cows and pedestrians. There is no animosity toward bikers but you will be regarded by other drivers as an obstacle and your job is to drive as close to the left side of the road as possible and, if all else fails in the pursuit of accident avoidance, to drive off the road into the field, ditch, open sewer etc.

Road rage. Nobody gets road rage in India until an accident has actually happened. Once it has occurred the rage is loud, rancorous and occasionally violent. It can go on for a long time.

Overtaking. Tailgating is an art form on the Indian sub continent so, on single lane roads, overtaking is achieved by pulling out from behind the vehicle in front. If you are still alive, you will apply slight pressure to the accelerator so that you are going marginally faster than the overtakee, who is expected to adjust their speed so that, after negotiating a few blind bends in each other’s company, you will have a sufficient speed advantage to complete the manoeuvre. You are then free to apply the brakes sharply and pull in violently to the roadside to negotiate the purchase of a coconut or two.

Indicators. A flashing left indicator can mean one of three things:

I am turning left or pulling in to the kerb;
I know your are there so please overtake me;
I am turning right.

A flashing right indicator usually means that the driver has forgotten that his indicator is on but could mean that he is turning right. Treat with caution.

Just because a truck is coming at you in the opposite direction does not necessarily mean you are going to hit it. You usually don’t.

If you have been sensible enough to hire a driver, do not be surprised by the array of “ta das” and other random noises emanating from his (it will be a him not a her) mobile phone. You might be forgiven for thinking that he is playing a new video game but do not panic it will be his sat nav, boss or wife calling.

Traffic calming. You will find the occasional barrier placed along what might, in the west, be called the slow lane and, er, … the fast lane. These are usually encountered just after you have endured a two hour traffic jam, are finally on a clear stretch of road and humming gaily to oneself about life on the open road. Some drivers will slow appropriately and negotiate the obstacle in a reasonable fashion. Others will see it as an opportunity not to be missed, drop down a gear and mash the accelerator pedal to the floor in order to overtake several vehicles just before the “chicane” which has obviously been placed there precisely to facilitate that manoeuvre.

These barriers are not illuminated but you might have a chance of spotting them in daylight hours. Less so at night on an unlit dual carriageway. They often bear helpful slogans such as “Donate blood. But not on our highway”. I suspect the irony is lost on those who put them there. Speed bumps can also surprise the over confident driver as these are often found in places where one would not have thought them necessary. A motorway, for example.

Hospitals are few and far between and not immediately obvious. As all health care in India is private, hospitals apparently feel the need to advertise their existence such that often, road barriers emblazoned with appropriate banners are put by hospitals in the most incongruous places to advise you that they are nearby just in case you should, for example, have the misfortune to crash into a barrier on the highway. You cannot fault the marketing abilities of the Indian medical profession. I would guess that most hospitals have a disproportionately high percentage of patients from the two wheeled community – and their extended families who were travelling with them at the time.

To summarise. If you decide to drive in India, do so with your eyes wide open. Alternatively, hire a driver and keep them tightly shut.