We've been travelling around the southern part of India by road for 8 days now, doing a zig-zag pattern from Kovollam in the very south west of India to Goa, about 700 miles farther up the west coast. The zig-zag has seen us across to the East coast of the country and back through some fabulous scenery, on roads that range from the wonderful to the outright demonic along with some interesting road hazards. I shall never grumble in the future about UK roads or the driving standards of UK drivers. We are all but amateurs when it comes to idiocy on the roads and here in India there is an active nationwide competition to see who it is that can behave in the most stupid way behind the wheel, on a bike, or on foot. The graveyards of this nation are filled with the bodies of failed contestants.
Our driver, Shateesh, is fine. We told him when we first met him that there were two rules to which he needed to adhere. Rule one was that there was to be no crazy driving and rule two was that he could only use the horn in an absolute emergency. He has stuck to the rules and we have felt safe in his hands. However, here's a short resume of the things we have seen and narrowly avoided.
Road hazards here come in two main forms. The first is the large number and variety of animal and vegetable hazards. The second is the danger posed by the 'people / machinery' combination.
Regarding animals we have swerved by, dodged or halted just in time in the presence of loose dogs; cats; cows (by the score); pigs; goats; sheep; choocks; oxen, monkeys and even encountered an elephant in the back of a pick up truck. The dogs, cats and monkeys aren't too troublesome as they are bright enough to get out of the way. The bloody cows just either stand there or slowly lumber from one side of the road to the other. Now I understand that the cow is sacred to some here, but allowing a cow to stand in the road and eat garbage at the side of it is not veneration its just laziness on the part of the owner. Worse is our bovine friends will often simply lie down in the road and while it is possible to treat them as a sort of roundabout during the day its rather more unnerving when its dark and you suddenly find a black cow lying down on black tarmac against the backdrop of a black sky. Oxen aren't too much bother when they are pulling a cart, though some of the carts I've seen have been so overloaded that I have felt for the poor beasts, but at least the cart provides some size to at least help other road users see it. But of course they have no lights at night, so as a car driver at night you scamper up at 50 KPH behind something that is the size of a truck with no lights doing 3 KPH. Its scary.
Vegetables as a road hazard may be a new concept to you dear reader, but I can assure you that it is one that requires a driver's attention if disaster is not to strike. I say vegetables as a broad term and include pulses, grains and pretty much anything that comes from the ground within the description.
Between Kanchipuram and Mysore there is actually a half decent dual carriageway for some of the journey. For reasons I shall explain later under the people / machinery section this means that the average car driver can get up to a heady 50 or 60 KPH. So there we were. Sateesh busy doing his driver stuff and us in the back gazing out of the windows. Suddenly there is all sorts of commotion as cars, trucks , buses and bikes jostle to brake and get into the slow lane. Its mayhem, with arms being waved and horns sounded. The bikes go up the verge to get through and Sateesh somehow manages to find a spot in the queue for our little car. Eventually we pass the cause of all the fuss. For about 3 miles some enterprising folk have realised that tarmac, being black, soaks up the heat of the sun and stays warmer longer than, say, grass. So they have decided to spread an inch thick layer of bright yellow lentils on the entire fast lane to dry out. Its pandemonium.
A little farther on past Mysore its harvest time and the farmer's or their labourers cut down the grain by hand using sickles and then carry it to the carriageway and put it in ten yards long, twelve inches high mats on the road for cars and trucks to drive over, acting as a type of rudimentary threshing machine. The mats of grain aren't the problem - its the labourers that stand in the road with a brush and a bag collecting the grain.
"Where are the cops?", I sense you asking yourself. Well its very interesting but you don't actually see any cops on the roads, ever. Infrequently you may see an empty Police 'Highway Patrol' car parked by the side of the road but you never see any actual policemen. Even when, as happens at the entrance to every town, village or hamlet, the chicane barriers announce ' Police Check Point - Stop & Proceed' there are never any policemen checking (though I am not sure what they would check if they were there). Unsurprisingly no vehicles 'stop' - they simply 'proceed' though the barriers themselves can be a surprise at night for, and yes you are ahead of me, they have no lights. This is one of the many people / machinery combinations of lunatic behaviour that make driving in this country so hazardous.
So what about the others? Its where to start really that is the problem, as I'd like you to believe that none of it is fiction, but if I dive in with the belters you might switch off. Oh well here goes in no particular order of importance.
Firstly you have to appreciate the nature of the average road user. There are car drivers, bike riders, cyclists and pedestrians. There are horse and oxen drawn vehicles. I've seen a family of six on a small motorbike; a man on a moped with a 50kg bag of something between his legs and a calf on his lap; a rickshaw with at least a dozen kids on board; a 10m trailer being towed by a man sitting on a rotovator and a woman riding a scooter carrying and opened umbrella.
There are thouands of buses and they are all driven by men with a death wish and a horn that when pressed registers 8.4 on the richter scale. It turns out that buses that operate between towns don't run to a timetable, the drivers simply have to make two round trips and then they can clock off. As a result they are driven at suicidal speeds and drivers will think nothing of overtaking 3 & 4 abreast, at night, and around blind corners to clip a few fractions here and there. Truck drivers are clearly former bus drivers as the behaviour is the same. They will overtake, undertake and virtually push other road users out of the way in their quest to get home. This is one of the reasons why if you are in a car 50 - 60 KPH on a two lane highway is the max, as you have to continually concede to the maniac bus and truck drivers or end up in the ditch. Car drivers, bike riders and rickshaw drivers are, without exception, totally oblivious to other road users and pedestrians. I even saw a car with a picture of some religious icon painted onto its windscreen so that the driver had only a small 12 x 12" space to peer through. I noticed this as it undertook us on the hard shoulder at high speed.
This is all complicated by that other interesting people / machinery combination: the directionally challenged. I've seen a truck going the wrong way up the fast lane of a dual carriageway and countless bikes, cars, buses, tractors and trucks going the wrong way on the wrong side of the road. Its seems that if where they want to go is only a few miles up the road they will do it on the wrong side of the road for their convenience, so they don't have to cross the road. Its carnage and, of course, worse at night.
You may have noticed that I have made specific reference to driving at night more than once.If you are ever tempted to drive at night in India I can only implore you not to - it is just too dangerous.
There are two types of headlight used at nights on vehicles in India. No, not the dipped beam / main beam options that you are familiar with but the specific Indian headlight design which has only two settings, either off or on full beam. Now, remember what I've already touched upon in this bulletin as hazards, then add darkness and imagine a bus coming towards you. Its going at breakneck speed, on the wrong side of the road with no headlights on and then, when it is 30m from you it puts enough headlights on main beam to act as a lighthouse. You can't see and you don't have enough time to shit yourself, so you just yank the wheel left and hope there isn't a cow lying down by the side of the road.
Don't even let me start on the behaviour of pedestrains!
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