Road Rules Part I: Blow Horn India

June 19, 2007 at 11:55 am (India, Travel)

Truck, originally uploaded by coming2cambodia.

Although I have not actually driven a car in India, I have spent sometime over the past week observing the rules of the road. After careful consideration, I have come up with the following guidelines for correct horn usage a la India style.

• Beep if you see a horse.
• Beep if you see a cow.
• Beep if you see a camel.
• Beep if you see an elephant.
• Beep if you see a pig.
• Beep if you see another car.
• Beep if you see a truck.
• Beep if you see a motorcycle.
• Beep if you see a toy car (technically these are known as autos—they are green and small and have three wheels, use CNG, and are everywhere).
• Beep if you are about the merge.
• Beep if you are illegally going through a red light.
• Beep if you are not going to stop at the stop sign.
• Beep if you are changing lanes.
• Beep if you don’t believe in lanes.
• Beep if you are about to get hit.
• Beep if you think you are about to get hit.
• Beep if you think the guy next to you is thinking of hitting you.
• Beep if you are about to hit someone.
• Beep if you are thinking about doing something that would hit someone.
• Beep if you are about to hit something.
• Beep if you are about thinking about doing something that would hit something.
• Beep if you see an accident.
• Beep if a car is stopped in front of you (in this case continue beeping until the person moves regardless of if they can do anything about it).
• Beep if you haven’t hit your horn at any point in the past 30 seconds.
• A single beep cannot count towards two of the above at once. For example if you see both another car that is about to hit you and a cow, you should beep three full times (once for the car, once for the cow, once for almost being hit)

Please keep in mind that while these general mandates are not followed by everyone and are not legally binding—they are the norm (and only slightly exaggerated- perhaps).