Indian Road Rules

What I learned when I drove a tuk-tuk 2000 miles across India

The best way to stay alive on Indian roads is to be a cow.

Cows own the road in India. They fear no car, strolling nonchalantly into traffic at will. Big-horned brahman bulls nap on the freeway, and cows stop to nurse their calves in the street. Dogs and goats dart out of the way of oncoming vehicles, but cows simply stare you down as you swerve, missing them by mere inches. They know — all the way down to the tasty marrow of their bones — that they are sacred.

Last September, three friends and I drove 2143 miles across India in a tuk-tuk, as participants in the Rickshaw Run. This adventure road trip for charity drew 70 teams from the US, England, Australia, Germany, Taiwan and beyond. The Adventurists, who “organize“ this unsupported, inadvisable journey three times a year, provided each team with an unreliable auto-rickshaw, a place to test-drive it, a starting line, a finish line, and a party at each end of the rally. Beyond that, we were on our own.

The Reading Rickshaws picked up our custom-painted pair of three-wheeled, glorified lawn mowers in Shillong, in the far Northeast of the country. Two weeks later, we dropped off what was left of them in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, the Western-most city in India.

Until I drove across India, I did not realize that dirt roads could be made of ditches. Our motorized rickshaws traversed washed-out mountain passes, crumbling bridges, highways paved with potholes, and chaotic city streets with impenetrable traffic circles.

Each time we dodged a dawdling cow, a broken down truck, or a bus barreling toward us in our lane, we questioned the wisdom of our vehicle choice. Lacking seatbelts, doors, and the ability to go more than a few hundred miles without breaking down, these two-stroke, gas guzzling auto-rickshaws are designed to take people across town, not cross-country. Our stature and speed put us near the bottom of India’s traffic pecking order, below freighter trucks, tour buses, elephants, and passenger-laden tractors with pulsing sound systems. Even if cows weren’t sacred, they were bigger than us, giving them right of way.

To maintain our safety, we quickly learned to obey five important rules of Indian roads. Maintaining our sanity required us to actually embrace those rules, opening ourselves to the lesson India wanted to teach us.

Rule #1: Share the road

I knew there would be a lot of cows in India. But I didn’t fully appreciate how many of them would be on the road, and how often. Within five minutes of picking us up at the airport in Guwahati, our friend and volunteer chauffeur had dodged a dozen bovines on the highway.

Cows compose a significant portion of total road users at any given time, but they are by no means the majority. They co-mingle with cars, motorcycles and bicycles; trucks, buses and tractors; horses, water buffalo and stray dogs; rickshaws of the manual and motorized varieties; vendors pushing food carts; and the occasional herd of sheep.

Cows have the right of way, and after that, it’s like navigating the high seas. Smaller vessels are responsible for avoiding larger ones, being more maneuverable and facing more serious consequences in a collision. At the same time, vehicles already in traffic are expected to make way for others entering the road, much like maritime rules for downwind sailors. As a result, motorcyclists entering the highway from a side road don’t bother looking before merging, and pedestrians crossing the street simply step into traffic and maintain a steady pace and direction while drivers stop and swerve around them.

Driving an auto-rickshaw across India felt a bit like sailing a Sunfish in the shipping lanes. We were at the mercy of road conditions, the elements, and overworked, underpaid people piloting bigger ships than ours. So Rule #2 saved our lives repeatedly.

Rule #2: Honk for your life

The most important safety feature on an Indian vehicle is not the brakes, or the seatbelt, or airbags. It is the horn. The most terrifying moments of our trip happened when the horn stopped working on one of the rickshaws, rendering it invisible to other traffic. This resulted in three near-misses and a near-death experience within 10 minutes, all in broad daylight.

Indian cities are notoriously loud, because everyone honks the horn, all the time. Our Indian teammate described the philosophy as, “I honk, therefore I am.”

To be fair, honking is more than an existential exercise; it’s a necessity. Indian drivers focus exclusively on the road in front of them. Rear view mirrors are used primarily for primping, and side view mirrors have either been ripped off in traffic or folded in to avoid being ripped off in traffic. So drivers approaching from behind or beside are expected to announce their presence by honking profusely. There is always another vehicle, animal, or pedestrian darting out in front of you, so honking is a constant requirement.

Even when it’s not required, honking is habit.

While stopped in typically heavy traffic one day, my Indian-born teammate chastised me for not honking at a pair of horse-drawn carts blocking the road in front of us.

“But there’s nowhere for them to go! What difference does it make if I honk at them?”

“How would they know you want them to move, if you don’t honk at them?” he replied, as if this were only logical.

And perhaps it is logical. Despite the chaotic traffic and crumbling roads, Indian drivers remain remarkably calm as they go about their honking. It’s possible the horns serve as a release valve for road rage. It also alerts you when another driver is ignoring Rule #3.

Rule #3: Drive on the left

Unless you feel like driving on the right. And then it’s fine, on a dirt road or freeway. Sure, it’s safer when everyone drives the same direction on the same side of the road, but what fun would that be?

If road lanes mean anything in India, no one has alerted the general public. Not even the portion of the population that builds the roads. To wit: it is not uncommon to find the only petrol station for 50 miles on the OTHER side of a divided highway that is completely devoid of exits. We found ourselves driving on the “wrong” side of the road to avoid rickshaw-sized potholes in Meghalaya, elephants and road construction in West Bengal, kilometer-long swaths of drying corn in Bihar, sheep herds and camel caravans in Uttar (or was it Madhya?) Pradesh, and a flooded bridge in Gujarat. I stopped counting the number of times we swerved around a car sitting in the center of our lane, doors wide open, parked next to a group of travelers picnicking in the grass.

Of course, obstacles are not a prerequisite for driving on the wrong side of the road. It’s also perfectly acceptable for reasons of speed, comfort, or convenience. Smaller vehicles — such as motorcycles and rickshaws — are the most likely to drive against traffic, but everyone does it sooner or later, and often. To drive in India is to be ready to dodge oncoming traffic at any time. Which brings us to Rule #4.

Rule #4: Safety third

When the sun sets, scary near-misses take a back seat to the abject terror that is driving at night. Beyond the absence of streetlights, there is a prevailing belief among Indian drivers that headlights reduce fuel efficiency. Many drivers choose not to turn on their headlights until and unless absolutely necessary. The few drivers willing to sacrifice perceived fuel economy for safety just use their high beams all the time, blinding oncoming traffic. Brake lights and running lights rarely work, rendering delivery trucks invisible on dark mountain roads where they’ve stopped to repair a flat tire. Bicyclists and rickshaw drivers don’t use lights or reflectors, nor — it goes without saying — do the dusk-colored cows that wander aimlessly and continuously into traffic.

After crossing four states, we got our first glimpse of stoplights. Traffic was utterly oblivious to them. We told a hired driver that Americans will stop at a red light on a deserted road in the middle of the night and wait for it to turn green before proceeding. “Why would anyone do that?” he wondered, shaking his head in disbelief.

Daytime driving in India isn’t much safer, thanks to a deadly combination of overloaded trucks and under-maintained roads. Two days before our Rickshaw Run departure, a too-full truck tipped over when it attempted to pass an auto-rickshaw on the pot-holed mountain road we were about to traverse, crushing the driver and all six of his passengers. A few days into our journey, we marveled at the 18-wheeler-sized “saddle bags” draped across a tarp-covered, overloaded trailer. We dubbed another truck “Marge Simpson” in honor of its tall, tilting cargo, wrapped in blue tarp.

If six passengers sounds like a lot to squeeze into an auto-rickshaw, you haven’t experienced Indian roads. When no one else can fit inside an SUV, remaining passengers simply climb onto the roof, or stand on the rear bumper, gripping the roof rack for stability. A single motorcycle can comfortably transport a family of five, with mom balancing side-saddle on the back, holding a baby in her lap. Motorcyclists rarely wear helmets, though passengers often carry one, just in case someone might need it.

At times, Indian drivers display a dangerous level of curiosity. One friendly trucker cut off our tuk-tuk repeatedly on the freeway to invite us to drink chai with him. A family of five in a compact car ran us off the road to get a closer look at the Western woman driving an auto-rickshaw. They were all smiles and waves, taking photos with their cell phones, as I fought to keep our rattling, battle-scarred death trap from careening into a ditch.

Rule #5: Directions are approximate

Despite having in our possession an Indian road atlas, a series of printed google maps, and a GPS-enabled smartphone, we got lost. A lot. We saw plenty of signage that promoted concrete brands, listed dignitaries who were exempt from road tolls, and advertised the specs and construction company of the bridge we were about to cross, but we rarely found signs indicating road names or directional information. No North or South. No arrows at intersections corresponding to the names of towns on our maps. And never enough cell phone coverage or battery life to rely on GPS.

So we asked for directions. A lot.

The quality and accuracy of directions varied greatly. Actual responses to the question, “How far to Bodhgaya?” ranged from:

“Only 20 more kilometers.”

“50 kilometers, at least.”

“That’s too far to go in an auto-rickshaw. Why would you go there?”

“This is Bodhgaya. You are already here.”

One response was consistent, however. No matter where we were going, it was “seedha.” Our Hindi-speaking teammate would ask, “Is this the way to Ajmer?” The response was always surprisingly lengthy, and primarily comprised of the word “seedha,” which is supposed to mean “straight.”

Except when it means “right.”

Or “left.”

The secret to deciphering the meaning of “seedha” was to pay attention to the hands. Saying “seedha” while pointing to the right meant, “Turn right, then drive straight down that road.” Saying “seedha” while pointing behind us meant, “Go straight back the way you just came. You’ve missed the turn-off.”

As a result of following these five road “rules,” we fell behind schedule immediately. We fretted when a 50-mile stretch of road in West Bengal took four hours to navigate. Two days later, in the Himalayas, the same distance took eight hours, and we had to get out and push.

We cursed India’s poorly maintained roads, its crazy drivers, its less-than-helpful maps, its laissez-faire cows simultaneously ignoring and exacerbating the frenzied free-for-all that is city traffic. On two occasions, we showed up 24 hours late on the doorsteps of family friends and Facebook followers who volunteered to host us in their homes. We apologized profusely while they served us home-cooked meals, washed and folded our laundry, scrubbed our filthy rickshaws, and abandoned their own beds to provide us with clean, comfortable places to sleep. In every state, strangers served us chai, presented us with gifts, and allowed us to use their bathrooms. Children everywhere greeted us along the roadside with cheers, high-fives and smiles. Himalayan villagers helped push our auto-rickshaws up the steepest hills. Once, a handful of taxi drivers rescued us from the roadside early on a Sunday morning, then took us to find — and wake up — the town mechanic. So, despite repeated attempts by the Indian road to dash our spirits, Indians themselves buoyed us in every port.

For the first week in India, I broke down in tears at least twice a day. Eventually, I let go of all expectations and accepted the uncertainty. It was then that I learned the most important lesson of the Indian road: Relinquish control. Take life as it comes. Embrace your inner cow.