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Confluence on the Roads: Thoughts about American, Indian, and German Traffic

Yesterday Aditya and I made the trek to the holy queen of all box stores, IKEA. It was the first day of the Preview Summer Sale, so of course we were there, battle plan mapped out, lists made, room measurements at hand, and stomaches ready for meatballs. The plan was that I would arrive mid-afternoon with the U-Haul rental van (the better to transport our loot - we take IKEA seriously in this household), and Aditya would come directly from the office once he was off work at 7. Once there, my orders were to make one reconnaissance sweep, then head to the ground floor to secure the bed we’ve been trying to purchase for the past year. Yes, we’ve been sleeping with a mattress on the floor for a year rather than give up on our dream cheapo bed just because of little things like it always being out of stock.

We plan, and God laughs. I think it was when the third firetruck passed me, sirens blaring, and traffic ground to a complete standstill that I realized I would not be reaching IKEA at 1300 hours. There I sat, stalled on the highway, surveying the baking asphalt meadows around. To pass the time, I started observing the cooperation of the other drivers in responding to the emergency vehicles and the on-going traffic jam, and thinking about how other car cultures I’m familiar with cooperate in their own ways.

Americans: when the going gets tough, we get out of the way

I’ve driven in pretty much every area of the US - West Coast, Midwest, South, East - and one thing that never fails to amaze me is how good American drivers are at clearing a path for emergency vehicles to get through. The highway I was traveling on yesterday had what looked like a 3 or 4 car pileup - all the lanes but one were completely blocked. Traffic was already moving slow prior to the accident, and the road had more than its fair share of idiots zigzagging to gain a few car-lengths advantage, or refusing to alternate when lanes were merging. Idiots on the road always worry me, but particularly so when I’m driving an unfamiliar van with massive blind spots.

Yet, when the first fire truck came by on the left shoulder the entire left lane cleared out to make room for it - and all the other lanes made room for them. And the same thing happened when the second truck came, the two ambulances, and then the final firetruck. Drivers who wouldn’t allow others an inch in their lanes prior to the alarms did whatever they could to make space. I’m not sure how this norm to get out of the way gets hammered into the admittedly thick heads of American drivers (road rage, anyone?), but somehow it does. In fact, I didn’t even notice it enough to remark upon until I’d traveled to a few developing countries where road rules and norms haven’t quite been established yet - people don’t want to block emergency vehicles, but there’s no agreed upon response to sirens in the distance. But that’s not to say that drivers in developing countries don’t have their own ways of cooperating with each other.

Indians: always aware of where everyone is

Traveling on roads in India can be a worrying - perhaps even terrifying - experience to those who aren’t used to it. I was certainly shocked, even though I intellectually knew what to expect. For those of you who haven’t had the chance to fear for your lives in India, think of the bumper car ride at your county fair except at the last second there’s no bump. Or, try checking out the video below, that perfectly reflects my experiences in Bombay & Calcutta (except with 1/3 as many cars):

Yes, that’s really what it’s like. Except more cars, rickshaws, trucks, and motorcycles & scooters, and occasionally animals.

However, did you notice how aware the drivers were of where the other vehicles were - at least the ones in front of them? I wouldn’t last a day driving in an Indian city without getting into at least one accident! That’s not because I’m a bad driver - really - but because I’m just not used to needing to be on top of the situation like that at every moment. I bet most Americans would have trouble surviving on India’s roads - they aren’t used to the give and take of Indian traffic patterns. Or the lack of, you know, people following lanes and traffic lights and stuff. Despite these things, Indians have a system of cooperation on their roads that works for them. I don’t think it’s the most efficient system - did you see how slow all of the vehicles were traveling in the video? - so I think it’d be a good idea for India to eventually adopt road rules & norms that are more similar to the Western world’s to ease congestion.

Of course, sometimes the complete disregard Indians show towards rules, such as lane lines in the cities is a good thing, given Indian road design. A few blocks away from the house of Didi, my sister-in-law, was this gem - possibly my favorite road scene in Bombay:

Yes, yes, I know, I can work wonders in Microsoft Paint. If you write me very nicely I might be willing to send you a signed copy of my masterpiece, Bombay Road. In case you can’t get the details from the impressionistic work (inspired by the blurry photos I took), the blobs with four black dots are cars, three are rickshaws, and two are scooters/motorcycles. Vehicle volume suggests a mid-afternoon setting. There’s a divider in the middle, which had some lovely bushes and a massive tree (the green blob dead center). The lane lines, which were quite fresh, didn’t account for the tree. Let’s hope the red rickshaw and green car don’t care too much about sticking in their current lane.

Surprisingly, the other major culture I know about is occacsionally willing to disregard lanes…

Germans: the best drivers I’ve seen

Of the nine months I lived in the country, I can’t recall one time I saw what I would characterize as “bad driving.” Now, that could just be a selection bias - I spent most of my time in a small town and rural area, where the traffic was light. But I imagine that the strict requirements for getting a license in Germany - long hours behind the wheel with a professional instructor, difficult written exam, stringent driving exam, heavy fees - results in better-than-the-American-average drivers. Maybe not by a lot, but probably some.

These requirements, I think, end up producing drivers that are a good combination of American & Indian drivers - they’re good at following the rules of the road (in my experience much better than Americans), but have the awareness of their surroundings similar to the Indian drivers I’ve seen. This combination, though, leads to some driving behaviors that I think would be suicide in other countries. Witness the next amazing Gori masterpiece, inspired by the classic arcade game Frogger: German Road.

If there exists a straight stretch of a road with only one lane in each direction - and decent shoulders - German drivers will spontaneously work together to create a middle lane for either side to use as a passing lane. The first time I was in a car & saw this behavior - on a highway traveling at 90 km, no less - I freaked. With both sides on the shoulder as far as they could go, there were still only inches between them and the cars passing in the middle. If the drivers in the middle weren’t careful, of course, they could have a head-on collision when two cars traveling in opposite directions tried to pass simultaneous. One mistake by any of the cars, and an accident was almost certain.

And yet, I lived to tell the tale. And Germans continue to cooperate to create dangerous situations just so they can pass each other and go a bit faster. As do Americans, with their weaving in and out of traffic. And Indians with their “whatever works” rules. *grin* I suppose the lesson we can all draw from this is that, really, people, the world over, like to get where they’re going.

I eventually got where I was going too, and pulled up to IKEA only a couple of hours behind schedule. And we finally have our bed. (And another bed for the guest room. And a dining table. And chairs. And other stuff. Let’s not discuss my IKEA addiction, please.)

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