Traffic Madness

Mumbai traffic is insane. This is something everyone knows, but it's something else to experience it. And I've done a lot of experiencing over the past couple of days. It's not scary so much as just all-in: everyone jostling for that little edge forward. The dumb thing is that if everyone kept lane discipline and, say, didn't run through red traffic lights, the whole system would probably work a lot more smoothly. Still, as the customer I met today said, Indians love to break the rules – to feel like they're winning something over the authorities. A sentiment we can appreciate in Australia, even if trying to drive in this mess would make most of us blow a fuse.

That's one definite upside to having a driver, quite aside from having someone who will pick you up, deal with the issues of parking, look after bags, etc. I'm thinking that if I eventually get to India for a holiday, this is a good way to do it.

There are some good roads – in fact on the first day it was too good: we took a brand new expressway and arrived at the customer site (ahem) 90 minutes early for the meeting. Still, better early than late...
The frightening thing about this 15km raise expressway is that there is no breakdown lane, no turn-offs, and it seems no way to cross over to the other side in an emergency. One broken-down car will cause a huge traffic jam. Two broken down cars will totally clog everything for hours. Fun just waiting to happen.