Driving in India

A Short Quiz for Drivers in India.

Multiple Choice Section

1. Lane markings on roads are

a)      A make-work program for road-line painters

b)      A mere suggestion

c)       Lanes?

2. Sounding one’s horn is

a)      A warning that a vehicle is overtaking another

b)      A warning that another person or vehicle is in imminent peril

c)       Both “a” and “b”

3. This road sign is meant

a)      To be taken seriously

b)      A typical bureaucratic mistake: it should read "avid honking"

c)       To be understood as bitter, post-modern irony

4. Potholes are

a)      An unfortunate reality given the lack of public funds for infrastructure

b)      Cheaper than speed bumps

c)       Both “a” and “b”

5. To cross a street, a pedestrian should look right and

a)      Wait for a break in traffic – all day, if necessary

b)      Think about an alternate route that includes no street crossings

c)       Pray, step off the curb, run like hell --- sauve qui peut!

The stories about the challenges of driving in India are legion. Robinson Melkis, my Capuchin friend in Kollam, maintains that “If you can drive in India, you can drive anywhere.” Whether that is true or not, it must at least mean that you can fear no other situation for sooner or later you will encounter all of them in India. Part of the challenge is simply the vast and growing number of vehicles. There are thought to be some 2,000,000 cars registered in Delhi alone, along with 100,000 auto rickshaws, countless motorcycles, and unnumbered bicycles.

Unless you’re on the relatively rare divided highway, there is almost no telling which part of the road a vehicle will occupy at any time. Even on narrow roads, several vehicles may be abreast of one another, stretching across the road, with a similar line of approaching vehicles, all sounding their horns, all jockeying for position. Small wonder that I have rarely seen a car that did not have scratches or dents in the fenders or bumpers. I saw one aged Sikh powering a battered little car down the road. He had evidently solved the problem of a too-wide vehicle: all that was left of the side mirrors on both sides were holes for the mounting.

Only at night does the horn-honking quiet down. I don’t know whether it is law or custom for vehicles to honk as they overtake, but they all do it. As I’ve been driven along in an auto rickshaw on a noisy, busy street, I’ve wondered who outside the vehicle could possibly hear the squeeze-bulb horn the driver sounds.  I’ve heard louder horns on children’s bicycles.

Slow Moving Vehicle

Somehow though this huge nation moves itself around. The challenges of infrastructure only continue to mount as more and more people become affluent enough to graduate from bicycles to motorcycles and then to cars. And in addition to infrastructure, there is the growing and very real issue of decent air quality. I hadn’t been in Delhi a day before I found myself joining in the chorus of honks and coughs expressed by a respiratorily-challenged populace.