INCREDIBLE INDIA AND OTHER INCREDiBiLiTiES: 12 August 2007

Nearly each day, there is some more or less severe or mortal accident with one of the Delhi busses. In the press than described as speeding up murder busses. Of course the busses are in a status no European country would allow them on the road and of course the drivers or not the most educated …. For 6000 Rps (approx. 120 Euro per month nobody should expect a very intelligent, moral impeccable and with reflexes as Michael Schumacher). But there are also so-called speeding up murder trucks as well as there are cars, killing people.
So obviously the reason is somewhere else, the reason is the total disorganization and lack of discipline but also control of the traffic.
It starts with the sidewalks. Indian sidewalks are good for a lot of things. You can plant big trees or rampant bushes on it; cows may use it as a dirt track. The pavement is also the preferred spot for small business as bicycle repair, shoe polishing, mom-and-pop store. And during the night as public latrine and even as last deathbed. To walk on it is not very suitable, therefore most Indians do not even make an attempt to use it and walk on the street. The use of zebra crossings is unknown and an Indian respecting himself, does not care about separation of lanes as long as they are not so high he can’t overcome them. That is already the reason #1 one for the accidents. But there is more, it is the mixture making the danger. Slow pedestrian, a bundle of unnecessary bicycle rickshaw, driving zickzack, cutting curves and with a swirl to the wrong side of the street, scooters and motorcycles looking for the smallest gap to jump in it.

Trucks in deplorable conditions almost always overloaded not just by 20% but by a factor of 2 or so, all this together with the unreasonable use of the horns give the right mixture for deathly accidents. During daytime the only goal of the total ignorant of any traffic rules, is to be at the first place at any traffic light or other mostly self- created traffic jam. Of course if the left lane is already completely filled with cars and in the empty spots with scooters and bikes, despite the white line on the street, the right lane will be taken, as a result now also on the other side there is a traffic jam. Sometimes I really wonder how people can be so stubborn and sometimes I really wonder how people can be so stubborn jam just to win 2 m.
Under these conditions there is no need for so-called criminal blue line busses, it is the system, the tumultuary of the traffic and lack of the will to follow traffic rules being responsible for the fatal casualties. And the police? You may ask. Well sometimes I see some control on helmets, but I never saw that someone taking the wrong lane on the highway was stopped and prosecuted. Only yesterday I saw 2 man on one scooter, the man in the back had a bundle of at least 10 PVC tubes under his arm, each with a length of at least 5 m. Police stopped the scooter, the driver was asked to put his helmet. No further actions were taken and both continued in peace their trajectory. If now a bus, just touch the in the muddle of the traffic and the scooter falls of course once again officially it will be the speeding – up criminal bluelines, but for me it will be the police or the government allowing the infraction of the most essential traffic rules.