Traffic in India is unlike anything in my experience, with cars, unique transport trucks, auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles, cattle, dogs, water buffalo, oxen drawn carts, goats, and people all sharing the same space. Oh, did I mention constant horn blowing?There is no discernable structure or rules but rather a free-flowing, cacophonic, kaleidoscope of motion.
The horn is consistently used as a warning that the vehicle is passing another vehicle and transport trucks actually have on the back “Horn, OK. Please.”
It has been common on a four-lane divided highway for vehicles to drive the wrong way – in the passing lane – at speed! Just get out of the way – and people and animals do it without apparently thinking anything of it.
In a survey done this week of the 16 million residents of Mumbai the number one issue for all income brackets were better roads. They are bad – except for some new highways just completed and built by the private sector. These will be maintained by the contractor for anywhere from ten to twenty years and collect tolls for that period of time before it is turned back to the public sector. These roads have more frequently been built on time and on budget, which was not happening with government run projects.
Even though there is little evidence of rules of the road it seems to work OK. I suspect this is an appropriate metaphor for business and life in this very crowded region – free flowing and maneuvering around obstacles — with these roads moving a nation that is a nation on the move.
Doug MacDougald,
for the SCAW 2007 Mumbai Travelling Team
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