Driving in India: Explained

In order to drive in India you must break down the act of driving into it’s most bare essentials. i.e. How wide is your car? and I don’t mean how wide is the lane or any broad guess, but exactly, to the inch(or centimeter in India). This is important because the exact width of your car is the
exact width of your “lane”... always. Every time you were driving in the West and you had that momentary burst of heart rate because that reckless bastard in the SUV almost ran into you, guess what?, they didn’t “almost hit you”. Not even close. In India they were hogging the lane. Driving up a pothole strewn mountain road with steep thousand foot drops and no guard rails while a brightly painted semi-truck bares down on you from the other direction will quickly teach you how narrow a real “two-lane” road is. If you aren’t rolling down a mountain than there is plenty of room.

These same bare essentials refer to other parts of traffic and driving as well. Speed limits are determined by how fast your car can hit one of the chasm’s that would terrify an American pothole without disintegrating the entire poorly made Indian vehicle (luckily the speed you can hit these potholes without destruction is, “not very fast”, or I’d be dead already).

Remember how the width of your car is the exact width of your lane. Now here’s the real kicker. The exact length of your car is the length of your lane. Take a moment to digest this. It means that two cars can be hurtling down the highway dodging cows dogs and donkeys simultaneously aiming for a direct head on collision with each driver calm and composed with the knowledge that they’re well within their lane.

In practice these few rules account for just about all of the rules of the Indian road. Oh, one last rule. DON’T HIT THE COWS. that’s it, all the rules. If this seems like too few rules to you, if you think the end result of the rules would be total chaos... then you are definitely correct. Good luck. Buckle-up... just kidding your car doesn’t have seat belts!