Running the Gauntlet

Driving on Highways in India is like running the gauntlet, it’s a huge relief when you make it safely home. Its almost unbelievable, about hundred thousand people perish in accidents in India every year. The Government seems to be least bothered, may be they think its another way of keeping population growth in check. Most Highways are still single roads, for both way traffic. Then there are all kind of settlements all along the Highway, Villages, towns, etc. No effort is made to stop these settlements.

The traffic itself so bizarre, on that 20 feet wide road you have the people on cycles, bullock carts, pedestrians, autos, stray cattle’s, you name it and you have it there….all going at there own pace, stopping where ever they want too, in the middle of the road. Worse, if u leave out the cars and mobikes, most of the other vehicles don’t have tail or the break lights, so u don’t have any warning when they are going to stop, you realize at the last moment that the guy in front of you has stopped moving, so either you hit him from behind or manage to cum to a screeching stop. The people, they walk along on highways as if its there neighborhood park. Night time its almost impossible to drive in those blinding lights from the on coming traffic, which are constantly in your face. Its very very risky to be driving in those conditions, for one I don’t drive at night, unless its really urgent. Majority of accidents occur during night time, not only due to poor visibility but also due to the fact that most of those truck drivers are under influence of alcohol.

A large part of the blame rest with people too, who have absolutely no road sense, they do all kind of stupid things, like running across the road from no where, the cyclists just turn without even bothering to look behind, and if by chance you fail to ‘save them’ and are involved in an accident, the local people will pile on to you, as if you are the one responsible for it, even though you did absolutely nothing wrong. They will thrash you, at times people have being killed too in this madness. Once on the Highway on a mobike, as the last truck passed by, I saw this guy on a cycle coming right across the road, there was no way I could have braked, I increased the speed and even went off the road hoping that he wud break, but he kept coming and finally…I went flying over the mobike, which got entangled with the cycle, stopped some 10 yards ahead, kind of miracle that I was in one piece, just my left hand was badly bruised, blood trickling from everywhere. Looked at that idiot..he would not move at all, shit is he dead….few people came running ..how you ride you killed him….it was time to counterattack…are you blind…you did not see what happened….being weak would have meant a thrashing, few jumped to my defense, amidst all this chaos the guy finally sat up and I left the place… Since then I am very cautious when ever I see pedestrians and cycles (the rural people), their behavior and those of animals is almost same, without any signal without any warning they will just do what they feel like…seem to be staunch believers in the nike advertisement ..just do it……Not only we need better roads, but road sense has to drilled in the minds of the people, If you don’t value your life its all right find another place to commit suicide but at least let the others live.
Tomorrow I am hitting the highway again, going to Delhi for about 10 days, I don’t know if I would be able to blog but would try whenever possible, till then you people be good. : )