To say we had never seen anything like it would be an
understatement. The volume of traffic is
unbelievable and lane discipline non-existent.
Lorries and buses change lanes constantly and instantly. Tuk-Tuks weave in and out at the same time
while taxis look for every opportunity to gain their passengers a yard. All this is done to the constant sounding of
horns and the wanderings of animals.
The most amazing thing is that despite this we saw no
accidents, it was as if there was a one centimetre force field around all the
vehicles. The drivers seemed to be able
to judge space and distance to the millimetre.
Our worst journey was the last, from Jaipur to Delhi, 250 km
of dual carriage way that they were converting to a six lane motorway – all at
once! 250 km of traffic jams with short
moments of madness in-between. Lane
changes every two minutes as the driver tried to make ground, lorries trying to
do the same while the traffic was four vehicles wide covering two lanes of
road. Oh and interspersed with all this
the occasional camel cart. The
highlight image of all this was however a coach which had forced its way across
the central reservation, then through two lanes of speeding traffic,- yes the traffic coming in the opposite
direction was running freely, doesn’t it always?- it
then continued its journey on the
hard shoulder against the oncoming traffic.
The police were completely absent during all of this, and
then as we finally entered Delhi our coach was pulled over, the driver had let
his front wheel stray into a lane that he shouldn’t have and was given a 500 r
fine. Ain’t it the same the whole world
over!!
No comments:
Post a Comment