Its been 7 months now that we are in India and one of the things that I was afraid of when we moved to India is how I will handle car driving in India and the Indian traffic sense. To my great surprise I am handling the car driving situation pretty well (as compared to my expectations). I dont want to sound over confident of course and I am still very careful while driving around. But generally I have a good sense now of whether a vehicle/person will stop for me or will i need to stop for them. Also a good sense of whether my car will pass between 2 objects or will I need to wait for one of them to pass. 🙂
Of course this is not to say that there is no frustration while dealing with traffic and other drivers in India. Every time I get behind the wheel, I become a slightly different person (a little less patient and a little more aggresive). However I am slowly training myself to be patient and reminding myself every day not to be overconfident.
I have brushed my side mirrors 3 times in total (2 with cyclists driving on wrong side and 1 with a car coming from opposite direction). Thankfully no major damage.
In India you need to be more attentive and focused while driving as compared to driving in USA. There are 2 wheelers buzzing around you. If you have a long empty space in front of you be careful since vehicles from opposite lane will use that space to overtake slow moving vehicles in their lane. Its also in your best interest to stick to the vehicle in front of you since otherwise vehicles from side roads will enter the road in front of you and create more delay.
The fact that we have an automatic vehicle helps since we need to concentrate only on the traffic and not on the gears. Driving in Mumbai is slightly different compared to Driving in Pune. Mumbai has many narrow roads and I got stuck in traffic even at midnight. Ridiculous. Pune has bigger roads and I have not got stuck in traffic as much. But the amount of 2 wheelers in Pune is much more and hence need to be extra careful while driving since these 2 wheelers are the most impatient bunch.
One of the main causes of traffic is when vehicles take adhoc Uturns. I feel if adhoc Uturns were removed Indian traffic would move more smoothly. I personally try not to block traffic while taking Uturns and if required I goto a side street to do a Uturn.
You can see folks breaking rules all around you and you have to try your best to maintain patience and have the courage to follow rules most of the time. It is not possible to follow rules all the time though. 🙂 . That is just the plain ugly truth. Overall I enjoy driving in India although a little bit fear always resides in the heart.
– we in hathi (Honda city) with bees (2 wheelers) buzzing all around us from various directions.
– We are selective about the routes we venture out on and time we drive to dodge traffic as much as possible. but typically get stuck behind slow moving vehicle from Bicycle to hathgadi to various sizes of trucks
Our driving school Sir used to say — Think of these 2 wheelers (scooters and cycles) and Autos as your cars bodyguards. They will
be all around you except you have to take care of them and not the other way around. 🙂
What irks me the most is
1. No lane discipline
2. No regards to light signals — I would be driving in the fast lane and I see a slow car in front of me. No amount of flashing headlights will get him to move. One has to honk no matter what.
I agree Prashant — driving tends to bring out the “Hulk” in me too.
Even I have brushed my side mirrors couple of times.
Good Job Prashant….
I still drive in Mumbai when I come to India. I need 3- 4 days to get a sense of roads [ Right Hand Drive ].
The first thing I do [ or it is already done by my brother ] is fold the side mirrors. 🙂