Carmageddon

Read / lees in : Nederlands

If you like adventure and thrills, or if you’re an idiot, you should really consider going on a motoring tour in India. It’s always nicely crowded everywhere, because you share the road potholes with pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycles, cows, goats, pushcarts, rickshaws, tuk-tuk’s and of course cars, buses and lorries. Drivers of one of the last three modes of transport are called ‘idiots’. Idiots move themselves around almost exclusively in vehicles made by Tata. That brandname is derived from the sound of their horns. That’s because Tata vehicles all have the unique feature that their horn is triggered by the clutch and the gas pedal. Not by the brake pedal because they don’t have any. Otherwise if the driver would step on the brakes the second floor passengers would fall on their Tata.

Rules? Who needs rules

Another funny fact is that these vehicles can’t drive if the rearview mirrors are not folded in. So the average idiot has no idea what going on behind him, which explains the handy horn feature. In general you should drive on the left side of the road in India, but of course idiots don’t have to respect this rule (or any other rule for that matter). The asphalt of the oncoming traffic is always of better quality, so if you’re an idiot it’s you god given right to use it, including on highways. Cows and goats are as obedient to traffic rules as the idiots, not to mention the tuk-tuk’s and the motorcyclists. In short, I should be careful not to fall asleep behind the wheel when I’m back in the Netherlands next week.