Rules Of The Road, Indian Style
Traveling on Indian Roads is an almost hallucinatory potion of sound, spectacle and experience. It is frequently heart-rending, sometimes hilarious, mostly exhilarating, always unforgettable -- and, when you are on the roads, extremely dangerous.
The 11 golden rules of the Indian road are:
Rule I: The assumption of immortality is required of all road users.
Rule II: Indian traffic, like Indian society,is structured on a strict caste system. The following precedence must be accorded at all times. In descending order, give way to:
Cows, elephants, heavy trucks, buses, official cars, camels, light trucks, buffalo, jeeps, ox-carts, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, pigs, pedal rickshaws, goats, bicycles (goods-carrying), handcarts, bicycles (passenger-carrying), dogs, pedestrians.
Rule III: All wheeled vehicles shall be driven in accordance with the maxim: to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat. This is the Indian drivers' mantra.
Rule IV: Use of horn (also known as the sonic fender or aural amulet):
Cars :Short blasts (urgent) indicate supremacy, in clearing dogs, rickshaws and pedestrians from path. Long blasts (desperate) denote supplication, to oncoming truck: "I am going too fast to stop, so unless you slow down we shall both die".
In extreme cases this may be accompanied by flashing of headlights (frantic). Single blast (casual) means: "I have seen someone out of India's 870 million whom I recognise", "There is a bird in the road (which at this speed could go through my windscreen)" or "I have not blown my horn for several minutes."
Trucks and buses: All horn signals have the same meaning, viz: "I have an all-up weight of approximately 12.5 tons and have no intention of stopping, even if I could." This signal may be emphasised by the use of headlamps.
Rule IV remains subject to the provision of Order of Precedence in Rule II above.
Rule V: All manoeuvres, use of horn and evasive action shall be left until the last possible moment.
Rule VI: In the absence of seat belts (which there is), car occupants shall wear garlands of marigolds. These should be kept fastened at all times.
Rule VII: Rights of way: Traffic entering a road from the left has priority. So has traffic from the right, and also traffic in the middle.
Lane discipline: All Indian traffic at all times and irrespective of direction of travel shall occupy the centre of the road.
Rule VIII: Roundabouts: India has no roundabouts. Apparent traffic islands in the middle of crossroads have no traffic management function. Any other impression should be ignored.
Rule IX: Overtaking is mandatory. Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you. Overtaking should only be undertaken in suitable conditions, such as in the face of oncoming traffic, on blind bends, at junctions and in the middle of villages/city centres. No more than two inches should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing -- and one inch in the case of bicycles or pedestrians.
Rule X: Nirvana may be obtained through the head-on crash.
Rule XI:Reversing: no longer applicable since no vehicle in India has reverse gear.
The 11 golden rules of the Indian road are:
Rule I: The assumption of immortality is required of all road users.
Rule II: Indian traffic, like Indian society,is structured on a strict caste system. The following precedence must be accorded at all times. In descending order, give way to:
Cows, elephants, heavy trucks, buses, official cars, camels, light trucks, buffalo, jeeps, ox-carts, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, pigs, pedal rickshaws, goats, bicycles (goods-carrying), handcarts, bicycles (passenger-carrying), dogs, pedestrians.
Rule III: All wheeled vehicles shall be driven in accordance with the maxim: to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat. This is the Indian drivers' mantra.
Rule IV: Use of horn (also known as the sonic fender or aural amulet):
Cars :Short blasts (urgent) indicate supremacy, in clearing dogs, rickshaws and pedestrians from path. Long blasts (desperate) denote supplication, to oncoming truck: "I am going too fast to stop, so unless you slow down we shall both die".
In extreme cases this may be accompanied by flashing of headlights (frantic). Single blast (casual) means: "I have seen someone out of India's 870 million whom I recognise", "There is a bird in the road (which at this speed could go through my windscreen)" or "I have not blown my horn for several minutes."
Trucks and buses: All horn signals have the same meaning, viz: "I have an all-up weight of approximately 12.5 tons and have no intention of stopping, even if I could." This signal may be emphasised by the use of headlamps.
Rule IV remains subject to the provision of Order of Precedence in Rule II above.
Rule V: All manoeuvres, use of horn and evasive action shall be left until the last possible moment.
Rule VI: In the absence of seat belts (which there is), car occupants shall wear garlands of marigolds. These should be kept fastened at all times.
Rule VII: Rights of way: Traffic entering a road from the left has priority. So has traffic from the right, and also traffic in the middle.
Lane discipline: All Indian traffic at all times and irrespective of direction of travel shall occupy the centre of the road.
Rule VIII: Roundabouts: India has no roundabouts. Apparent traffic islands in the middle of crossroads have no traffic management function. Any other impression should be ignored.
Rule IX: Overtaking is mandatory. Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you. Overtaking should only be undertaken in suitable conditions, such as in the face of oncoming traffic, on blind bends, at junctions and in the middle of villages/city centres. No more than two inches should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing -- and one inch in the case of bicycles or pedestrians.
Rule X: Nirvana may be obtained through the head-on crash.
Rule XI:Reversing: no longer applicable since no vehicle in India has reverse gear.
posted by Sujoo @ 7:21 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
Tell me about it. For a guy who survived death due to accidents twice(honestly not my fault, ya for a change), leaving the country was the only option. The roads were bent on getting me killed!!
@Enjoy Life: Its really worth not enjoying on the roads...But i had got really used to it..and still miss the chaos here. :D.
cheerios
kool yaar...btw just tagged u...so ure IT...read my blog and take it from there...
First and Foremost rule: Indian Government do not believe in Intermediaries. So road tax is payable "as and whenever required" in the able hands of The Road Patrols of the government of India directly.
But I still disagree with whatever you mentioned Sue. After all "Life is not about the breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away" and Indian Roads provide many such wonderful moments. What do ya say to that?
To add another penny... Thrills & Frills of a roller coaster ride is available for free... What more do you expect in a developing Country?
@Sue: Chill down..Yeah roller coaster ride...tell me abt it !! "Life is not about breath you take...the moments that take your breath"..lolz and true.
Cheerios
yea i stopped blogin coz of wat is a complicated story but i am thinkin of potin something in a day or too so till then u keep blogin
u might add one more rule though
when on road think that all other drivers are aliens from mars n don't have a clue wat they are doin
Thanks for painting such a good picture of the Indian roads! Newsflash: Some of the Indian roads are more sophisticated than the roads in the United States of America! And Puneet, people do lose lives in the US more than in India due to road accidents, you haven't escaped anything. It's just going to be better cars at faster speeds on bigger highways.
Try the roads in and around UH campus, no, I mean try driving on them.
I never see the roads of US, for me its good :-) ...
@Ket: Aga...shanta ho. It was for fun. But dint miss it despite anything...when I had been to India..
and I havent anytimes did driving here..So..can't say. But yea..freeways are helluva dangerous. :)
Everything...everyplace has its own Challenges..and fun.
hey there check out my blog i have updated as asked c ya
I bet the Americans would sit with their feet planted on the floor, one hand clenching the window frame, the other holding the seat and the heart stopping with each new intersection as our heroic driver clutches the wheel like a race driver!
Evidently the drivers back in India understand traffic system where the rules of the road, if any, are ignored. As a result there are rarely any accidents and no carnage. I guess by default, everyone manages to stop or yield or swerve, just in the nick of time.
[abridged from an earlier post at my blog :P]
But one thing I can say for sure is that US is a funny place.
You've underestimated the class status of pigs.... they have been know to cause many fatal accidents... probably your city did not have many ;)
However I miss the thrill of driving on Indian roads... make it a point to drive whenever I can on my backhome trips.
Btw: check this out
http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~soumen/media/turns.png
Reminds me of Douglas Adams's description of traffic in Shanghai:
`Yes, but if you're weaving along in a pack of cyclists, and everyone's ringing their bells, you probably get a very clear spatial perception of where everybody is. You notice that none of them have lights on their bicycles? I read somewhere that the writer James Fenton tried riding a bike with a light on it in China one night and the police stopped him and told him to take it off. They said, "How would it be if everyone went around with lights on their bicycles?" So I think they must navigate by sound. It occurred to me as we threaded our way through the crowded, noisy streets, that perhaps Chinese cyclists navigated by a form of echolocation.
Hilarious! :)
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