भारत की सड़कें (Bhārata kī saṛakēṁ)
The very night I arrived in India i started to understand that "Incredible !ndia" is not just a logo. The first hint was the cab drive from the airport. First I was positively surprised by the infrastructure. The highway had 3-4 lanes for each direction, good bridges and all.
Then I was amazed by the way Indians drive. Traffic rules seemed to have nothing to do with the actual driving. Cars, rickshaws, people, bikes, motorbikes driving chaotically across the lanes, everyone honking their horn every single move, traffic lights are completely useless and so on. Signaling is probably prohibited by law, because nobody seems to be doing it when they change the lane or turn left or right.
Actually, one day that I spent almost entirely in the car, stuck in the horrendous traffic between Delhi and Ghaziabad, I counted how many cars really used the signaling lights. Two! The entire day. And from those two, one was a case where two cars were parallel driving, one signalled the intention of changing the lane and started to move towards that, and the other one honked the horn, accelerated, and overtook the first car!
Then I understood. Lights are optional. Actually dangerous to use. However, blowing the horn is compulsory, and many trucks and cars have an inscription painted all over the back of the car: "Blow Horn Please!"


To this moment I still have no idea how traffic works here, how come they do not bump into one another every 2 minutes, and to this moment I have not yet seen an accident.

20th of October 2010, Noida, India