Flow is a verb often used to describe the movement of traffic. In India, where auto rickshaws, motorbikes, bicycles, cars, buses, cycle rickshaws, cows, trucks, tractors and people share the street with tea stalls and a thousand small businesses, it really does flow. When a river encounters a rock, it simply doesn't stop. It changes direction and finds another way. That's how the traffic here works, and the key to safety is simple: commit to your line and keep moving. Whatever is in front of you has right of way. Any hesitation or misstep could be disastrous. Don't turn to look! Just keep going and ignore the cacophony of horns behind you. Because through dozens of bus, jeep and rickshaw rides, as well as navigating the streets myself by motorbike and bicycle, I could count on one hand the number of collisions I've seen. This is a place where barefoot bus drivers blast through crowded markets with inches to spare, all the while leaning on the air horn and maintaining serenely blank expressions. Goats and cows are merely cones on a slalom course, and the concept of lanes exists only in the loosest sense.
At the above intersection in Pondicherry, just check out the scene. It's a 3D mesh. Look ahead, pick a gap and go for it. Somehow it works.
This scene was shot through the window of a bus to Madurai, cruising through the rice country. In the full swing of harvest, the countryside was busy with trucks and carts transporting grain and straw. This video is also a good example that two lanes actually equals (at least) three.
Anyone who enjoys horns should come to India. On any given day in a busy city, you can here approximately 12,000* separate honks. These range from the clack-clack of of a cycle rickshaw's rattled cymbals to deafening blast of bus air horn (which is usually louder inside the bus than out.) In between are a hundred subtle variations: the joy-buzzer rrrr-rrrr of an auto rickshaw; the whonk-whonk of an old-fashioned squeeze bulb; the rising and falling wadada-wadada; and the humble car horn, boring here in such varied company. On this ride in Thanjavur, the rickshaw-wallah uses his simple horn to great effect. Here I come!
*conservative estimate
At the above intersection in Pondicherry, just check out the scene. It's a 3D mesh. Look ahead, pick a gap and go for it. Somehow it works.
This scene was shot through the window of a bus to Madurai, cruising through the rice country. In the full swing of harvest, the countryside was busy with trucks and carts transporting grain and straw. This video is also a good example that two lanes actually equals (at least) three.
Anyone who enjoys horns should come to India. On any given day in a busy city, you can here approximately 12,000* separate honks. These range from the clack-clack of of a cycle rickshaw's rattled cymbals to deafening blast of bus air horn (which is usually louder inside the bus than out.) In between are a hundred subtle variations: the joy-buzzer rrrr-rrrr of an auto rickshaw; the whonk-whonk of an old-fashioned squeeze bulb; the rising and falling wadada-wadada; and the humble car horn, boring here in such varied company. On this ride in Thanjavur, the rickshaw-wallah uses his simple horn to great effect. Here I come!
*conservative estimate
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