We spent some time shopping in the Abids area of Hyderabad this evening. The business of crossing a road in one of these busy areas is quite an adventure. I took this movie during one of our crossings. This by the way was one of the less frightening ones. It can get a lot wilder.
For those not familiar with Indian traffic etiquette, honking is a common courtesy, not an expression of anger or aggression. When you drive in this stuff, you can quickly see why the honking is so important. With cars not really driving in the lanes, buses merging in to traffic all over the place, motorcycles diving everywhere, and pedestrians making like a frog in Frogger; there simply isn't any way that a driver could use only their eyes to stay out of trouble.
As our taxi driver was navigating through this sea of vehicles I was wondering to myself, why it was that there weren't more accidents. The one thing you realize when you observe for a while is that there are no asshole's in Audis (sorry Audi drivers, but you're by far the worst for this) trying to speed up the side of the road and cut off other cars. People in India show patience. They honestly seem to work together for the benefit of all. It's too bad you can't find more of this sort of thinking in North America.
For those not familiar with Indian traffic etiquette, honking is a common courtesy, not an expression of anger or aggression. When you drive in this stuff, you can quickly see why the honking is so important. With cars not really driving in the lanes, buses merging in to traffic all over the place, motorcycles diving everywhere, and pedestrians making like a frog in Frogger; there simply isn't any way that a driver could use only their eyes to stay out of trouble.
As our taxi driver was navigating through this sea of vehicles I was wondering to myself, why it was that there weren't more accidents. The one thing you realize when you observe for a while is that there are no asshole's in Audis (sorry Audi drivers, but you're by far the worst for this) trying to speed up the side of the road and cut off other cars. People in India show patience. They honestly seem to work together for the benefit of all. It's too bad you can't find more of this sort of thinking in North America.
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