





Indian Driving is a Social Dance. Indians drive with elaborate, sensitive social antennae, tuned to everyone else. Everyone keeps going at their own pace, simultaneously. The root concepts are radical pragmatism and social sensitivity. The Horn is a greeting, and drivers expect you to use it generously. Red Traffic lights (very rare) have a word painted on them — not “Stop” but “Relax.” By and large everyone’s journey is held to be as important as anyone else’s. You don’t need roundabouts because the whole road is a roundabout if you need it to be. Everything has its own order, but here’s the interesting bit — priority goes to the smallest, the weakest, and the least able to look after themselves, including animals. If there's an accident rigid hierarchy indicates automatically whose fault it was — the biggest/ fastest/ most able. Whatever happened it was their duty to protect the weak!
Here’s an everyday example of the whole dance, from our front windscreen traveling through Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, possibly Gooty. They drive on the Left in India but actually our excellent driver happened to be driving on the right as the clip begins. I particularly liked the guy in the white van driving round and round in circles, and the motorbikes going the wrong way up the pavement on the left at the end. What does the way we drive in England say about our real social values?
2 comments:
I'd be dead in five minutes!
Here in the U.S., particularly where I live, most people drive large trucks or SUVs (ugh) whereas I have a car.
I drive just a bit above the speed limit, and yet most people tailgate me, switch lanes, and speed up to pass angrily, only to have to slam on their brakes at the stoplight. (Which we reach at the same time, anyway.)
I think you're right to say that a particular driving style says loads about a person's personality!
I surely notice how ungenteel the most genteel English become behind the wheel of a car. Perhaps we're all roadkill in the end!
Post a Comment