The Thrills of India’s Highways
The Taj Mahal is fabulous, and the prince of Rajahstan’s gold-brocaded wedding suit is too. But I just traveled a highway in India—one of the most thrilling experiences of my life.
Cars, busses and gaily-painted trucks roared along, amid clusters of motorcycles, motorbikes and bicycles. The bikes carried up to three people each, rickshaw bikes carried up to four passengers, golf-cart taxies had as many as 10 aboard, and farm tractors pulled trailers with up to 20 rural travelers apiece.
Naturally, in that crowded country, farmers and their families swarmed both shoulders of the road. Kids sat or played on the busy roadway itself.
Unique to India were the self-propelled farm wagons. They’re powered by put-putting water pump engines borrowed from the irrigation wells. They carried about a dozen farm workers each, without seats, seat belts or headlights.
There were slow, stately camel carts. And even slower wagons pulled by angular cattle. White horses trotted along with a fancifully-mirrored white wedding wagon.
All of this humanity traveled at speeds from two to 60 miles an hour-swooping, swarming, merging and often stopping—with no visible rules. Cars and trucks crossed centerlines. They drove the wrong way up the road to avoid having to cross the stream of traffic. Sacred cows and non-sacred pigs wandered on and off the blacktop. Sheep and goats grazed the ditches, staying mostly off the pavement.
What happens when a slow golf-cart taxi tries to pass a still-slower rickshaw bike—and a heavy truck is rapidly overtaking both? The Indian solution is for the truck to swing over the centerline. The oncoming traffic is supposed to adjust. Even if a car in that oncoming lane is detouring around a stalled truck being repaired—naturally—on the roadway.
They’re saved by their horns, and a focus on the road situation that would do credit to a
Special Forces detachment in the Sunni triangle.
The trucks have signs on their tailgates saying “please honk.” They mean it. In India, honking is a precaution, not an insult to the other driver. Honking is how they keep track of overtaking traffic. So when the road needs five lanes, they squeeze five lanes out of two. Nobody gets mad. It’s the only highway around and they all have to use it.
The dancing bears on the highway were the final driving challenge. Their owners were trying to entice parents to stop their cars so the bears could put on a show for the kiddies. If the bus from Agra had to screech to a stop because of the bear, so much the better. The passengers might throw coins.
Indians don’t expect to travel fast. We averaged about 25 miles an hour for four hours. My driver told me he gets only half as much mileage between brake replacements as American drivers.
Only brave people drive Indian roads at night. Camel carts don’t have taillights. Nor do the truck drivers put flares around the stalled vehicles waiting for a new tire or engine part.
The next time somebody tells you that India is going to take all of America’s good jobs, just remember that all the supplies for an Indian business have to travel over a road like the one I was on.
