Accelerating Mayhem

From Delhi through the Punjab, car buff Stephan Wilkinson is humbled by the spirit—and traffic—of the subcontinent

"You can't possibly drive in India," an acquaintance, a smug doctor, said. "No Westerner can." Hey, I've driven all over the world, on Roman roundabouts and Andean mountain roads. I've been lost in Morocco and marooned on the Norwegian tundra, gotten ticketed for speeding from Japan to the Czech Republic. I've driven everything from my old Ducati Desmo café bike to 210-mile-per-hour race cars. I roam the world testing fast, expensive cars.

"I wouldn't dare try it," said my software-exec brother, a frequent flier to India's computer centers. "As a statistician, I put the probability of a fender bender for a driver like you at .001 in the U.S. and .15 in India," he calculated. Okay, you got my attention, suggesting that there's a driving task this gearhead is not up to. Bring it on, India.

So what did I learn? The short answer is that yes, a competent Westerner can drive in India. After all, I did.

An even better answer is yes, but why on earth would you want to?

Day One, 14 miles: Delhi to Shimla
Not being a complete idiot, I hire a driver to accompany me and my wife and daughter—in case the pessimists prove correct and Indian roads take me to Waterloo. Surender Vats is spiffy in a starched white uniform and peaked chauffeur's cap. He works for Delhi's posh Imperial Hotel, and the car I've rented turns out to be a handsome new Ford Endeavour SUV with the hotel's crest in gold on its shiny black doors.

Surender takes the first leg, out of Delhi traffic and onto National Highway 1 northbound—India's famous 400-year-old Grand Trunk Road, extending 1,600 miles from Calcutta to Afghanistan. Imagine a six-lane drop-off zone for departing flights at the busiest airport you've ever seen, during afternoon rush hour, the Friday before a holiday weekend—cars weaving, parking anywhere, darting to curbside, and forcing their way into the traffic stream. Now triple the traffic density and reduce the space between all the cars to a maximum of four inches on all sides. That is Indian traffic—"a life-size game of automotive Tetris," my daughter, Brook, comments, "with an endless swarm of metal."

One of the most dangerous things you can do in Indian traffic, I quickly find, is use after-you-Alphonse manners. Try it and you'll discover that it's like coming to a full stop in the middle of Interstate 80: so bafflingly unexpected that it creates chaos. It's assumed that you will force your way into any available gap, and you damn well better do so. South of Panipat, there is actually opposite-direction traffic on our side of the divided four-lane highway—a car cruising south on the northbound side! Nobody seems to think a thing of it, and everybody moves aside to let the car pass. There appear to be no rules of the road, and the entire country is a passing zone—particularly blind curves, hill crests, tunnels, boulevards, alleys. Actually, there is one simple road rule: The bigger vehicle has the right-of-way, and in the hierarchy of vehicles, the bodacious trucks made by Tata basically own India's roads. The only exception is for cows, which are considered holy and which roam, sleep, and forage wherever they want—expressways, country roads, sidewalks, traffic islands. Whack one and you'd best keep going: Mobs have been known to kill errant drivers.