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India  -  Part 4

The road to Haridwar is two lanes all the way.  Many modes of transportation share the one lane heading north.  There are people walking (some with bundles on their heads).  Then there is the bicycle or bicycle/rickshaw pulling a cart, and they both want to pass the pedestrian.  Then there are the water buffalo (black)  and/or ox (brown) pulling a cart that wants to pass the bicycle and rickshaw, as well as, the pedestrian.

Some of these carts are carrying wide loads.  A water buffalo and cart are passing the a bicycle while a car is passing both.

A tractor pulling a cart is passing animals pulling wide and heavy loads on carts.  The scooters pass the tractors.  And the cars, buses and trucks pass the scooters, which pass the tractors, which pass the ox carts, which pass the bicycles, which pass the pedestrians.  Now there's big trouble when everyone tries to pass at the same time, which they do.  One tractor and cart was passing a water buffalo pulling a cart while our bus was trying to pass the tractor at the same time it was trying to pass the water buffalo.  That puts three cars in two lanes and one lane has oncoming traffic.  We cut off this  caravan of tractors  and animals pulling carts overloaded with sugar cane.  The man in the picture was part of the caravan and he wasn't too happy.

Entire families ride on one motorcycle in India.  The most I saw was four on one bike.  Others in the group reported seeing as many as seven people riding on one scooter bike.  The helmet law only applies to men, except Siekhs.  It helps not to see where you are headed when you are riding on the back of a bike with three people.

Why not ride on the outside of the jeep?  Who needs a cover on a hot engine with a moving belt and fan blade?

All the Beverly Hillbillies can fit in one vehicle.  A bicycle with three gas canisters won't explode if the rider falls off or gets hit by a car.

There weren't any speed limit signs that I saw.  Vehicles have written on the back "Blow Horn" and we did.  Our bus had a city horn and a country horn. A special loud horn was used for most of the nine hour, 200 kilometer drive to Haridwar.   When we drove through curved roads in congested towns, the bus driver honked most of the time.  I was wondering what the traffic fatality statistics are in India.  And very soon after that, we saw a large dust cloud and realized a large truck had run off the road.  We saw people running to help pull the driver from the wreckage.

Another traffic jam was caused by a large political demonstration on the road.  All of those caravans of sugarcane that make it off the road alive go to the sugarcane factory for production.

Go to India Part 5

 

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