Bombay Drivers and their Horns

The demands that Bombay traffic places on drivers are something special. Although this is a major international city, even the main streets can be rutted with potholes (especially after the monsoon, when the rains simply force up the poorly-laid tarmac) making driving, er, fairly bumpy. Road-markings are often not in evidence, though, if you’re lucky, a central line of stones may suggest the median. At Regal Roundabout in Colaba, one of the busiest in the city, I was surprised to see no markings, yet there are stop-lights at three points around it. Moral: keep your eyes peeled. Pedestrians and bicyclists wander and wobble and zig zag along the roads at will, knowing cars will have to slow and swerve around them. It’s like an eternal game of chicken.
At traffic lights, the above factors make for a curious herding of the cars, all elbowing for position, forcing themselves forward into the tiniest of gaps, with as much order as cows at a closed farm-gate bunching and jostling and eager to be milked.

However, if drivers have some excuse for confusion because of the lack of ... let’s call it... infrastructure, then they have none for their traffic-discipline.

In a sense, it matters little if a cyclist cuts across a bus. If he were to be crushed by that bus, it’s unlikely anyone else would be hurt. It would be his own stupid fault. (But nearly everyone, oddly, will blame the bus-driver).
But the cyclist’s behaviour is in fact typical of the behaviour of... most of the motorists too. With utter indifference and without hesitation, they cut into the traffic flow from side-streets, they move from lane to lane at will (well, if there were lanes), and they come so close to each other that you can feel your paintwork warmed by the friction of air. (A lot of cars have their wing-mirrors folded in – a wise precaution, cos otherwise they’re liable to be smacked off). What to me looks like, at most, a two-lane highway, is, to the Mumbai driver, a four or possibly five-lane highway (depending on if s/he cares to drive on the wrong side of the road). All this is truly scary, which is why most visitors or ex-pats are driven by a Mumbaiker.

But you begin to realise two salient things after a few months on these apparently-suicidal roads.
First – the incessant, crazy horn-blowing has a purpose. Second – there are some incredibly good drivers on these roads….

The Mumbai police (and the local noise environmentalists) have this mad idea that the horn-blowing should stop. I agree it does seem random (I watched one taxi driver, stopped at a red-light, in the front row, sounding his horn the whole time. I give up on that one). But, if you watch carefully, you’ll know it’s an essential safety tactic.
Say you’re trying to pass someone – and you know he could swerve irrationally at any moment, you need to tell him, loudly, you’re at his side – sound horn. If some guy is walking in the street (pavements are often unusable, and slow to walk on), you have to tell him you’re there – sound horn. If you’re about to squeeze through the narrowest of gaps, you don’t need any other car to start thinking of doing the same – sound horn. In fact, if a motorist/pedestrian/handcart DOESN’T hear a horn, they will behave completely as if there were no one else on the street, and be mighty offended as you almost run into them.

I know what you’re thinking – if EVERYONE behaved courteously, even legally, no horn and no insane manoeuvering would be necessary. But, in my opinion – all that would then happen is that traffic simply would not flow. This is a very tiny peninsula and there are a lot of cars and few good roads. If Mumbai drivers behaved according to, say, British codes of driving, it would take four hours to drive the length of the city - instead of the present two. Believe it or not, these bunching twitchy drivers are what keeps the city moving. And most drivers do trust (with a little prayer to Ganesh) that the OTHER drivers around them do understand these Bombay-style Rules of The Road, and they proceed happily along
(Which isn’t to say that it isn’t dangerous – some of the young drivers especially seem to think that 60mph in this car-glutted city is a reasonable speed. Deaths happen.)

All of which… and here’s a contradiction… means there’s some absolutely brilliant and skilful drivers in this city. If you come to Bombay, and you’re not too scared to watch, just check out some of the tightest, nerveless driving in the world. But don’t think too long about it, or you wouldn’t do anything but walk.
And, whatever you do – DON’T tell your driver to lay off the horn, no matter how much your ears bleed from the noise. They’re trying to save your life.