A whole new highway code

The name of the highway you find yourself on is irrelevant when you are hurtling down in it panic. Research may have found that the UAE has more than its fair share of bad drivers and crazy speeding, but really, has anyone reading this column ever had to slam on their brakes for a cow ambling across the Sheikh Zayed Road? Or goats? Or buffalo?

You know what I am getting at. Driving in India, in any city, town or village is an act of bravery. Which is why it is not surprising that most international rental companies that have set up shop in India rent you their cars with drivers. It is not because they don’t trust you, but because they know you don’t know how to come to a sudden stop from 100kph on a highway when a cow decides to cross four lanes of traffic.

So there I was, being driven by a maniac down the Delhi highway which connects Delhi to a number of cities. It is an impressive stretch built solely to boost tourism in India. Of course, the economic gains have been impressive – fresh apples from an orchard in the hills of Himachal Pradesh can now reach the Azadpur wholesale vegetable and fruit market on the outskirts of Delhi in eight hours. If the truck had my driver, you could shave another two hours from that time.

Throughout the drive, I scolded him. First it was the seatbelt. He wouldn’t wear one. I made him. Then the phone calls he was taking while navigating through a maze of trucks, autorickshaws, young men on motorcycles and other aggressive drivers in sedans (and cattle). He stopped after I threatened to call his mother.

It was not entirely his fault. I hate to admit it, but what he was doing sounded familiar from my friends who commute daily on the Sheikh Zayed Road. If others around you are behaving badly, driving above the speed limit or flashing their lights at you, you have little choice in respecting the speed limit yourself because the chances are that you are going to get rear-ended or worse by a speed freak who will forcibly take their right of way.

In his case, too, he had little choice. If he didn’t aggressively nudge himself between trucks, someone else would. If he didn’t overtake on the wrong side of the other vehicle, someone else was going to, and probably hit him instead. Besides, there were no lane demarcations so traffic converged.

But panic is panic and whoever said driving in the UAE was bad surely hasn’t taken a ride on India’s new asphalt yet.