yr lttl pwny

I wanted to share on Bike Forums this entry I wrote for the blog that my boyfriend and I are keeping for the India and Nepal trip we are on currently. Please take heed!

-yr lttl pwny

Some concern has been expressed to me by a few family members that they are worried about us out here, riding alongside the India traffic. I will tell you that on our first day out on bikes I wanted to end my trip, and life by hurling myself and bike off of a cliff and into the Ganges. I didn’t think I could handle it and I felt like a big loser. But I hung in there, and so did Ed, and we learned to adapt very quickly to the insane traffic situations here. What would have once caused me to have a heart attack is just minute-to-minute daily business on India’s roads.

Ed's friend Cosmo said some helpful things when we met up with him in Rishikesh, one of them (besides the monkey advice) was about India drivers, "They're really good at missing you." It was great to meet with him because he has bicycled all over India, but he is super laid back and basically said nothing would be a problem, no matter what we asked about, and of course we have had plenty of problems! But he was right about ignoring monkeys and about Indian drivers being good at missing you – even if it’s by a centimeter.

India Traffic "Law "

Everyone also expects you to be good at missing them! Braking is not generally expected as a first reaction, and could cause more danger than the norm, which is to hold your ground/accelerate until someone MUST yield or die, generally using the following religious/bulk/swiftness hierarchy that Ed and I have observed;

1. Cows

2. Big Trucks

3. Buses

4. Medium Trucks

5. Vans, Jeeps

6. Smaller trucks, vans, cars

7. Motorcycles

8. Autorickshaws

9. Bicycles

10. Cyclerickshaws

11. Pedestrians

12. Stray horses, mules, and such

13. Dogs, Cats (Not that you're likely to see many cats, I've only counted 9 in a month and #5 was, well, an ex-cat.)

Then squish randomly between these the other large but slow vehicles such as ox-carts, tractors, and herds of goats. These are so slow that everyone will honk and want to pass, but they are so big they are undeniably in the way, so you must wait for a chance to pass them. In a downtown area of a city however, (or really anytime!) throw most of this out the window and just go as fast as you can, pass anything, and always take any space ahead whenever you can. This is the Indian way of offensive driving.

People rarely, if ever, look when they pull into the road from anywhere. The people ON the road are supposed to watch out for THEM. If a motorcycle driver does see you, they will just pull out anyway, and as a lower rank on the size scale you are on your own as far as self-preservation. I've seen double, triple, and quadruple passing on blind curves. Like 20 times in a day on sketchy mountain roads. Yeah.


HORNS

Everyone honks constantly, so be prepared for this. Right now in Sachin’s guest room I can hear horns from all over the city, sometimes around 3 or 4am you won’t hear a horn for a few minutes, but they are always sounding. Cosmo gave Ed the rundown, and I've added my own interpretation of this phenomenon;

If it's a little horn "tap" then it just means "here i come," or perhaps, "hello!" but mostly people seem to simply love the sound of their own horn.
--Used by motorists while turning corners on winding roads, as it is quite possible there will be someone about to run into them head-on as they pass a slow Tata truck on the blind curve. Also used on any living being who comes within eye/earshot of the driver, especially if said being has their back to the driver, or is a foreigner on a weird-looking bicycle.

A few longer beeps in succession, mean, "here I come, and I just want to remind you that you are below me on the food chain."
--Used in any meeting with others on the road.

Longer, more incessant honking can mean, "here I come, and you should consider making way."
--See above.

The unblinking, aggressive, extra-stress-inducing continuous horn is supposed to be reserved for "get the hell out of the way because I am in no practical position to avoid you and you may probably die and it will be no fault of mine because I have honked at you plenty as warning."
--Always accompanied by high speed. However, this style of warning is often abused in my opinion.

All horns are not created equal. Motorcycle horns are cute and not too loud, but make up most of the noise in metro areas, but with model names like “Splendor,” “Glamour,” and “Passion,” how can you not feel a little bit splendidly glamorous and passionate as they bombard you with their little beepity-beep-beep-beeps? Autorickshaw horns have a sound of their own. Car horns sound about the same as in the states, but Jeep-type vehicles seem to possess an extra-irritating pitch and volume. We have suffered some monstrously loud, melody-playing bus and Tata air horns right in the ol' ears, half the time just because the drivers want to say hello to us in their special way -- we are not amused…

Pollution

I think the diesel and petrol here is leaded. At any rate, huge, chewy, gritty, thick, black clouds of exhaust are spewed into the air and in our faces constantly. We are considering calling the California "report smoking vehicles" number and snitching out the entire Asian continent. As we got into Nepal, we becan to see more custom-made surgeon-style face masks being worn by motorcyclists, as opposed to the scarf, sari, or bandanna-clad noses and mouths of India. I ended up buying a 30-rupee model near Tansen, Nepal, that looks scandalously similar to a thong-type undergarment but does the job -- but I found these must be better for motorcyclists who are engine-propelled and not working up a sweat and breathing heavily -- I have mostly ditched the mask in favor of breathing more air, however polluted it may be. We have taken some movies and pictures of the black clouds...people are more than happy to just suck it all in most of the time and don't seem bothered, as is the case for many many things in India and Nepal for which most Americans would be discomforted by at the least.

bwgride

Your experience is interesting and fun, one you will certainly remember in the future as distinct and enlightening.

rep

Interesting. In Trinidad where I live, bicycles don't outrank pedestrians, who step right in front of you. The rest of it seems sadly familiar. Good luck and pay attention all the time! Cycling and walking aren't very relaxing in the developing world.

Losligato

Wonderful post! What's the name of your blog?

mev

Good posting and similar to what I remember cycling through south India.

I'd also noted that except for largest roads, lines/lanes really don't have any function. Generally traffic goes on the left side of the road (same as UK) but if for some reason things are blocked there, traffic swarms to the right. Also most of the narrower things on your hierarchy will swarm as appropriate independent of lanes.

jgsatl

that sounds awful...but very entertaining. thanks!

quester

Great post :-)

I'd add that the horns really are a necessity. Some vehicles, like most of the autorickshaws (which I've seen carrying up to 13 people!!!), have no rear-view mirrors. There is absolutely no way for them to know what's behind, so other vehicles must beep.

Also, most trucks seem to carry stickers that say something like "please blow horn", so perhaps they either don't have, or don't use, their rearview mirrors either.

I don't think the rickshaw in the picture has 13 people, but it's definitely double digits.

sanitycheck

Unless that leaded smoke takes out too many brain cells.

axolotl

Interesting that you say that. I haven't been to India, but I have toured in Sri Lanka, which was fairly sane compared to the description of India. However, I met 2 cyclists who had toured extensively throughout India on multiple trips. One of them drew a nice little map of India for me showing the parts of the country which they thought were best for touring. They felt that south India and the far north (the Himalayas) were quite good, but that the middle was much more chaotic. Mr. Pumpy's website also makes favorable comments about the south compared to touring in the rest of India.

paul2

That sounds like my experience cycling in India. The drivers weave in and out of traffic like crazy. However, they're not actually driving that fast, so it's not quite as crazy as it seems. By the end of the day of cycling I'd lose the hearing in my right ear from the horns, and my t-shirt and arms would be black from the pollution.

BryanKeith

Well, I agree, they are good at missing you, but alot of people do get hit. The statistic that I took with me when I headed to South India to cycle was: India has 5% of the world's motor vehicles but 25% of the world's motor vehicle fatalities.

Here's one of the paragraphs that I wrote about traffic after returning from that trip (on a tandem):

By the end of five weeks though, we never crashed, and except for one goat I can't even recall that we ran into anything. As in the U.S. the traffic law in India seems to be that if you get there first, you have the right to the road. This law is taken to its logical extreme such that there's really no reason to ever look behind you. Pay attention to what's in front, be ready to brake and avoid sudden turns. In this sense I could see order to it all and certainly enjoyed heavy, slower traffic to the far too common high-speed chicken matches with buses which left us more than once bouncing off the edge of the tarmac. It's no surprise that fatal bus accidents are reported almost daily in the newspaper.

You see that paragraph in context with photos from my 2008 trip here:
https://ideotrope.org/index.pl?node_id=74601

yr lttl pwny

Thank you, we are keeping the blog mostly for close friends and family members, so it's a usually a little personal to share with the general public, but I will be posting the more accessible and well-written items on bike forums here and there.

yr lttl pwny

And quester -- yes, most people remove their side mirrors as I've learned from being a car passenger in Delhi, they would probably just get ripped off anyway from all the the super-close maneuvering being done.

And honking really is a sort of necessity because of this, and other reasons. Now I am quite surprised and sometimes startled when a car passes me without honking, which has caused a near miss on my part a couple of times, as I was passing a few layers of bicycles and didn't get my honk warning!

BryanKeith -- thanks for the share of your writing. I have seen a few (minor, non-fatal) collisions between motorcycles, motorcycles and bicycles, bicycles and pedestrians. I have also seen several overturned buses along the road. But it's amazing with conditions the way they are that there are not even more of these incidents!

rm -rf

I remembered seeing this youtube video of an Asian intersection. It's interesting how the turning traffic works. Sometimes, there's a little game of chicken. You can hear the horns, too.

downtube42

Nice post.

From my experience riding in India, I describe the traffic as organic. It's like a living being. And I love the "Horn Please" "Ok", "Thank You" signs on big trucks, along with the painted on brake lights.

pathebikeguy

I just got back from Vietnam.
What you describe also applies to the big towns in Vietnam.
Once you get used to it, its not as dangerous as it looks.
There's nothing you can do about the pollution though. Except wear a mask.https://www.geocities.com/pathebikeguy/SouthVietnam2009