Indian Traffic Explained?

Hmmm. . . Indian traffic. Where to begin. There's really only one rule: don't wreck. That's it. How you go about following this single rule is up to you. Lanes? Nope. Speed limits? Riiight. Police? Where?

One of the guys at work explained it best when he said that traffic in India operates much like a herd of animals. That isn't to equate Indian drivers with cattle or sheep, but rather the actions taken by various drivers are analogous to what one might witness with a herd on the savanna. You've got large and small animals, leaders and followers, youngsters and old guns. Just as a heads up, this post is by no means a comprehensive analysis of the situation. Nope, I just take some terms used to describe groups of animals, alliteratively applied them, and discuss it a bit. The general idea is this: bigger vehicles (older, larger animals) have the right-of-way all the time, but still must look out for smaller vehicles (younger, smaller animals). If not, well. . . this video shows what might happen.

That having been said, here's are the designations I've given to different groups of vehicles, in parentheses is the animal group which the term typically describes:

• a bloat of buses (hippos)
• a clan of cars (hyenas)
• a rookery of rickshaws (penguins and sea lions)
• a scurry of scooters (squirrels)
• a brood of bikes (chickens)

When we first arrived I thought vehicles honked just to honk. While I'm not entirely convinced that some rickshaw drivers don't just honk at us to piss us off, I've found that on the whole there's a reason for the honking. Drivers honk before entering an intersection to let others know they are coming. They also honk simply to indicate their presence. Say a car is driving along the road, it will honk at a pedestrian to make sure they don't hop out into the middle of the road randomly. Rickshaws will also honk at a bus as it changes lanes just to let the bus know where it is.

As for passing, the only rule is that if you're going around another vehicle, you'd better be bigger than anything that could be driving towards you in oncoming traffic or you're out of luck. Also, don't hesitate. Ever. He who hesitates, well . . . you remember the rest of that line from The Cable Guy. And don't be afraid to threaten or stare down someone who has messed up the "flow" of the herd. We learned that in the middle of an intersection at 10:30pm one night.