Aside from the obvious problems such as increased congestion on already crowded roads, there are the minor details such as driver education and training, and perhaps trying to implement some organization to the chaos. Oh, and law enforcement. That might be helpful.
Never mind that none of the six adult members of the household knew how to drive. No sooner had the car arrived than Mr. Sharma, 34, took it for a spin and knocked over a friend. His brother slammed into a motorcyclist, injuring no one but damaging the bumper. The brother was so scared that he no longer gets behind the wheel, except on Sundays, when the roads are empty.
“We bought it first, and then we thought about driving,” Mr. Sharma confessed.
This situation will undoubtedly get worse now that Tata Motors has introduced a $2,500 car -- the world's cheapest -- which will pave the road to first-time car ownership for countless new Indian families.
Indians are rushing headlong to get behind the wheel, as incomes rise, car loans proliferate, and the auto industry churns out low-cost cars to nudge them off their motorcycles. They bought 1.5 million cars last year. By some estimates India is expected to soar past China this year as the fastest-growing car market.
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In his first driving lesson, Mr. Sharma had more immediate worries in mind. Sharing the road with him were a bicyclist with three cooking-gas cylinders strapped to the back of his bike, a pushcart vendor plying guavas, a cycle rickshaw loaded with a photocopy machine (rickshaws often being the preferred mode of delivery for modern appliances).
There were also a great many pedestrians, either leaping into traffic in the absence of crosswalks or marching in thick rows on the sides of the road in the absence of sidewalks. At one point, a car careered down the wrong side of the road. Then a three-wheeled scooter-rickshaw came straight at Mr. Sharma, only to duck swiftly down a side street. At least this morning there was no elephant chewing bamboo in the fast lane, as there sometimes is.
Somehow the idea of a "fast lane" in the midst of all this chaos is amusing. And this situation has nowhere to go but from bad to worse.
With a population of nearly 16.5 million, New Delhi now adds 650 vehicles to its roads each day. At last count, there were 5.4 million vehicles in all, a more than fivefold increase in 20 years; scooters and motorbikes still outnumber cars two to one.
Not surprisingly, pedestrians aren't faring so well in the mayhem.
Pity the walker in the city. Half of all fatal road accident victims are pedestrians, according to the police. Every now and then, a homeless person sleeping on the street is run over. Last week, a speeding car banged into a policeman standing at a traffic checkpoint and didn’t bother to stop; the officer was critically injured.
New Delhi issued more than 300,000 driver’s licenses last year, which could be seen as either a feat of bureaucratic efficiency or Indian ingenuity. At one city licensing office this week, the test, which took about a minute, consisted of turning on the ignition and driving in a wide circle.
Also, it's relatively easy to get a license on the black market, which is convenient for people who can't read, as the article goes on to cite one such example.
I guess they'll figure it out eventually. Meanwhile I'm happy to be watching it from afar.
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