I know that an Indian thinks it is normal that a pedestrian crossing the road WILL BE honked at by several drivers; that a motorcyclist traveling down a highway WILL BE honked at by another vehicle to move aside; that on a three lane road with all three 3 lanes full, a fourth vehicle trying to pass by straddling the lanes is reasonable and that the shoulder of the road is just another lane. These and many other realities are unavoidable on an Indian roadway. There are few stop signs, even fewer stop lights, and I have yet to see a posted speed limit.
I have NEVER been in a vehicle driven by ANYONE while in India where horn-honking was not involved while I am not even sure where the horn-honking button in my car back home is located. I have chosen to NOT drive while in India for the simple fact that I am too respectful and I cannot act like a typical Indian Driver which would actually cause more problems. The entire system is built on the suppression of Ego. Indians are able to interact without getting upset at these issues because they are able to suppress their Ego response, remove it from the situation. One of my Hosts explained their behaviour by saying "Indians are smart, they don't get mad about things that they can't do anything about." I would say this though, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it". Okay, I didn't say it, Kay said it to Jay but I agree. Take this same behaviour and drop it into an area that has a similarly large population per square foot like New York City or Mexico City or Santiago where the people do not have the same ability to suppress their ego and this would be a recipe for disaster.
An Indian believes that the Wild West approach to the activities on the road is perfectly reasonable and although there are rules to driving on Indian Roads, there is little if any enforcement. Indians revel in the freedom that this appears to provide, they believe that they are managing their behaviour better than it would be managed if there were a police presence on their streets. With only 76 police persons for every 100,000 people, manpower is spread so thin that drivers are left to self-regulate.
Self regulation however has led to traffic deaths of 19 deaths per 100,000 people which puts it amongst the highest in the world almost double that of the US at 10 deaths per 100,000 people, triple that of Canada which has 6 deaths per 100,000 people and six times that of England which is amongst the lowest in the World at less than 3 deaths per 100,000 people. When you compare population size, however, then the real story is revealed, of the 12 million people killed on the roads worldwide over 140,000 or 12% of those people are killed in India. This still doesn't tell the whole story because compared to the 797 vehicles per 1,000 people in the US, there are only 18 vehicles per 1,000 people in India. So if we recalculate the numbers on a vehicle basis, 33,000 people are killed with 260 million vehicles on the road in the US compared to 140,000 killed with 21 million vehicles (more than 10 times fewer vehicles). Let's consider one more calculation, if the US fatality rate per vehicle was the same as India then 1.7 million people would die on the roads in the US each year at which point the US would be able to achieve 0% population growth.
So I would have to ask my Indian hosts to reconsider whether their current situation should continue or whether maybe just a little more policing would be beneficial. For myself, the next time I am pulled over for a traffic infraction back in NA, I will thank the police officer for the safety he has brought to our roads.
I have NEVER been in a vehicle driven by ANYONE while in India where horn-honking was not involved while I am not even sure where the horn-honking button in my car back home is located. I have chosen to NOT drive while in India for the simple fact that I am too respectful and I cannot act like a typical Indian Driver which would actually cause more problems. The entire system is built on the suppression of Ego. Indians are able to interact without getting upset at these issues because they are able to suppress their Ego response, remove it from the situation. One of my Hosts explained their behaviour by saying "Indians are smart, they don't get mad about things that they can't do anything about." I would say this though, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it". Okay, I didn't say it, Kay said it to Jay but I agree. Take this same behaviour and drop it into an area that has a similarly large population per square foot like New York City or Mexico City or Santiago where the people do not have the same ability to suppress their ego and this would be a recipe for disaster.
An Indian believes that the Wild West approach to the activities on the road is perfectly reasonable and although there are rules to driving on Indian Roads, there is little if any enforcement. Indians revel in the freedom that this appears to provide, they believe that they are managing their behaviour better than it would be managed if there were a police presence on their streets. With only 76 police persons for every 100,000 people, manpower is spread so thin that drivers are left to self-regulate.
Self regulation however has led to traffic deaths of 19 deaths per 100,000 people which puts it amongst the highest in the world almost double that of the US at 10 deaths per 100,000 people, triple that of Canada which has 6 deaths per 100,000 people and six times that of England which is amongst the lowest in the World at less than 3 deaths per 100,000 people. When you compare population size, however, then the real story is revealed, of the 12 million people killed on the roads worldwide over 140,000 or 12% of those people are killed in India. This still doesn't tell the whole story because compared to the 797 vehicles per 1,000 people in the US, there are only 18 vehicles per 1,000 people in India. So if we recalculate the numbers on a vehicle basis, 33,000 people are killed with 260 million vehicles on the road in the US compared to 140,000 killed with 21 million vehicles (more than 10 times fewer vehicles). Let's consider one more calculation, if the US fatality rate per vehicle was the same as India then 1.7 million people would die on the roads in the US each year at which point the US would be able to achieve 0% population growth.
So I would have to ask my Indian hosts to reconsider whether their current situation should continue or whether maybe just a little more policing would be beneficial. For myself, the next time I am pulled over for a traffic infraction back in NA, I will thank the police officer for the safety he has brought to our roads.
I wonderful dissertation of putting tragic statistics into into proportion.
ReplyDelete