Delhi Driving - Lesson 1

Driving in Delhi has always been a challenge, despite (or because of?) the plentiful, wide roads. It has become even more of a challenge with the proliferation of vehicles of all sorts, and all the construction going on in preparation for 2010. Some observations of a daily driver, for surviving on these Lawless Roads:

Lesson 1: Lane Driving

Lane driving means different things to different drivers. For autorickshaw drivers, it means driving with the front wheel on the line dividing two lanes, effectively blocking traffic in both lanes. For motorcycle drivers, it means cutting in from the left lane and then cutting in from the right lane, scraping your car evenly from both sides. For bus drivers, it doesn't mean anything, except on the BRT bus corridors, where it means they have a lane to themselves and can test the speed limits more easily. For drivers of cars with a red light (लाल बत्ती) on top, it means they can drive in the lane meant for cycles on the BRT bus corridors. For the traffic police, it means even less, because they don't know the first thing about driving anyway!

Postscript: New observation. The right lane is not for overtaking as we once thought. It is for cruising along at 20kmph, cell phone in one hand, cigarette in the other, a finger lightly on the steering wheel ...