India's traffic deaths are soaring at an astronomical rate and won't level out until 2042. Don't believe me? While many Bangaloreans claim that traffic doesn't move fast enough in the city to cause any real injuries, the statistics spell out a different story. In Bangalore, pedestrian deaths are greater than those in New York City and nationwide, pedestrian deaths are 34% of all traffic deaths.
According to model predictions in the WHO report, "between 2000 and 2020, South Asia will record the largest growth in road traffic deaths, with a dramatic increase of 144%." You can guess which country leads the pack. Many drivers don't use normal driving techniques such as looking to see if there are other vehicles entering the intersection. When you first arrived in India, You will assume that Indians had a highly developed sense of telepathy. But knowing the accident rate, understand that ignoring red lights, zebra stripes (pedestrian crossings) and other vehicles are accepted facts about driving here, running over people is part of the culture; simply view it as a dangerous practice being culturally insensitive. It's just simply unacceptable and people in India need to own up to the fact that they need to become safer drivers.
Hiring one of the much vaunted 'drivers' is simply a speculative venture as many are road hardened agitators that are more often than not causing chaos. I bet that these "professional drivers" contribute to another 25% of the accidents. You are better off driving yourself, taking it easy, or getting on a big bus and trust that the jerk behind the wheel gets you to your destination even though he may send a few cars full of families into a ditch.
What's even more disturbing is that a mild-mannered co-worker, considerate neighbor or cheerful store owner becomes a high-risk driver on the road seeking any opportunity to pass vehicles on blind curves, hills, in fog, or, of course, using the other lane even if there other vehicles coming towards them. The lane is theirs....its part of the culture.
Bottom line, be exceedingly careful whenever you have to walk or drive anywhere and understand that the mortality rate is increasing by the minute
1. Walk and drive as if you are invisible: Indian congeniality stops at the steering wheel.
If you have to drive or cross a street, forget about the peaceful, loving Indian nation you may have heard or read about. You'll need luck and pluck to not get struck. Once behind the wheel or astride their two wheelers, Indians are about as concerned for their fellow citizens as the sack of garbage they just tossed out the window. Turn signals, headlights and common sense are optional for motor vehicle drivers.
2. Drink bottled water and don't drink the tap water, no matter how native you think you are.
Even some of the natives drink bottled water. How safe can it be where 40,000 households in the east and central parts of the city do not have 24/7 water availability? Water gets polluted due to run off in the monsoon, industrial seepage, contamination with sewage as well as human and animal excreta. Add agricultural waste into drinking water pipelines through cracks and leaky joints, you have water that is not safe to drink.
3. Noise is your enemy and you need to be creative to suppress it because you can't defeat it.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that "45 decibels (is) the safe noise level for a city. Metropolitan areas in India usually register an average more than 90 decibels; Mumbai is rated the third noisiest city in the world, with New Delhi following closely." Bangalore with 6 million plus, cannot be far behind.
You cannot escape noise but you may be able to find ways to suppress the level. First, drive with your windows up and radio turned loud. Everyone will be honking their horn all the time so listening for honks as a warning signal is moot as all the other drivers mean is 'I matter and you don't.'
The next step is to live on a dead end street or a gated community where entry and exit is infrequent and most of the other people in the neighborhood are also seeking solace.
If you are a local hire getting the prevailing wage (as we are) and not the big expat salaries, then choose your apartment carefully. Look for streets that are small, tight and go nowhere, without chai shops which always seem to have 10-20 males hanging around gossiping like old maids.
If you can't live in a gated community or dead end street, you'll need to use earplugs and soundproofing material to shut out the noise so you can sleep. You may also want to consider getting a few neighbors and rounding up the stray dogs then jettisoning these horrible creatures elsewhere - hopefully dozens of kilometers from your domicile. If you don't, get ready for all night howlathons.
4. Cook your own food or if you find a restaurant that doesn't wreak havoc on your stomach, go back there to eat.
Even then, be careful as you can't even trust the milkman as he may substitute white poster color for milk. Call it Bangalore Brownies, Delhi Belly, Tamil Trots, diarrhea will happen and traveler's diarrhea will happen.
5. Find a good (and real) doctor.
Recent reports have pegged the faux doctor count at around 5,000 just in Bangalore. We were lucky enough to have friends hook us up with a real doc, a guy that actually went to medical school and cares about his patients
6. Get used to seeing child laborers.
It's a well known and accepted fact that kids do some pretty strenuous labor here and you don't see many demonstrations or citizen groups trying to get "the authorities"" do anything about this pitiful situation. In India, many of life's expectations go in hand with expectations of one's caste. For the lower castes, this means menial labor and being subservient and deferential to the higher castes. The British didn't invent this either as many historians peg the caste system origins as at least 2000 years old. And although the intermingling of the castes started happened during the British rule, the division between castes never evaporated and the caste system is alive and well in India today. There is one small group here in Bangalore, s trying to get kids off the work site and into the art studio. So in a country of one billion, you're going to need thousands of groups who are actually performing outreach work.
7. Have some cash in your pocket (and your house) to deal with corruption.
Corruption in India’s hi-tech darling, Bangalore, In the Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer 2003, the results of a survey showed that Indians would like to eliminate or at least reduce corruption in the education system, political parties and the police.
8. Queues (or waiting in line, as Americans know it) are for others.
Oh yeah, queue cutting happens even at the multinational business where I work. Rudeness has no boundaries.
Walk Carefully, Drive Safely, and Have a Nice Day :)
According to model predictions in the WHO report, "between 2000 and 2020, South Asia will record the largest growth in road traffic deaths, with a dramatic increase of 144%." You can guess which country leads the pack. Many drivers don't use normal driving techniques such as looking to see if there are other vehicles entering the intersection. When you first arrived in India, You will assume that Indians had a highly developed sense of telepathy. But knowing the accident rate, understand that ignoring red lights, zebra stripes (pedestrian crossings) and other vehicles are accepted facts about driving here, running over people is part of the culture; simply view it as a dangerous practice being culturally insensitive. It's just simply unacceptable and people in India need to own up to the fact that they need to become safer drivers.
Hiring one of the much vaunted 'drivers' is simply a speculative venture as many are road hardened agitators that are more often than not causing chaos. I bet that these "professional drivers" contribute to another 25% of the accidents. You are better off driving yourself, taking it easy, or getting on a big bus and trust that the jerk behind the wheel gets you to your destination even though he may send a few cars full of families into a ditch.
What's even more disturbing is that a mild-mannered co-worker, considerate neighbor or cheerful store owner becomes a high-risk driver on the road seeking any opportunity to pass vehicles on blind curves, hills, in fog, or, of course, using the other lane even if there other vehicles coming towards them. The lane is theirs....its part of the culture.
Bottom line, be exceedingly careful whenever you have to walk or drive anywhere and understand that the mortality rate is increasing by the minute
1. Walk and drive as if you are invisible: Indian congeniality stops at the steering wheel.
If you have to drive or cross a street, forget about the peaceful, loving Indian nation you may have heard or read about. You'll need luck and pluck to not get struck. Once behind the wheel or astride their two wheelers, Indians are about as concerned for their fellow citizens as the sack of garbage they just tossed out the window. Turn signals, headlights and common sense are optional for motor vehicle drivers.
2. Drink bottled water and don't drink the tap water, no matter how native you think you are.
Even some of the natives drink bottled water. How safe can it be where 40,000 households in the east and central parts of the city do not have 24/7 water availability? Water gets polluted due to run off in the monsoon, industrial seepage, contamination with sewage as well as human and animal excreta. Add agricultural waste into drinking water pipelines through cracks and leaky joints, you have water that is not safe to drink.
3. Noise is your enemy and you need to be creative to suppress it because you can't defeat it.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that "45 decibels (is) the safe noise level for a city. Metropolitan areas in India usually register an average more than 90 decibels; Mumbai is rated the third noisiest city in the world, with New Delhi following closely." Bangalore with 6 million plus, cannot be far behind.
You cannot escape noise but you may be able to find ways to suppress the level. First, drive with your windows up and radio turned loud. Everyone will be honking their horn all the time so listening for honks as a warning signal is moot as all the other drivers mean is 'I matter and you don't.'
The next step is to live on a dead end street or a gated community where entry and exit is infrequent and most of the other people in the neighborhood are also seeking solace.
If you are a local hire getting the prevailing wage (as we are) and not the big expat salaries, then choose your apartment carefully. Look for streets that are small, tight and go nowhere, without chai shops which always seem to have 10-20 males hanging around gossiping like old maids.
If you can't live in a gated community or dead end street, you'll need to use earplugs and soundproofing material to shut out the noise so you can sleep. You may also want to consider getting a few neighbors and rounding up the stray dogs then jettisoning these horrible creatures elsewhere - hopefully dozens of kilometers from your domicile. If you don't, get ready for all night howlathons.
4. Cook your own food or if you find a restaurant that doesn't wreak havoc on your stomach, go back there to eat.
Even then, be careful as you can't even trust the milkman as he may substitute white poster color for milk. Call it Bangalore Brownies, Delhi Belly, Tamil Trots, diarrhea will happen and traveler's diarrhea will happen.
5. Find a good (and real) doctor.
Recent reports have pegged the faux doctor count at around 5,000 just in Bangalore. We were lucky enough to have friends hook us up with a real doc, a guy that actually went to medical school and cares about his patients
6. Get used to seeing child laborers.
It's a well known and accepted fact that kids do some pretty strenuous labor here and you don't see many demonstrations or citizen groups trying to get "the authorities"" do anything about this pitiful situation. In India, many of life's expectations go in hand with expectations of one's caste. For the lower castes, this means menial labor and being subservient and deferential to the higher castes. The British didn't invent this either as many historians peg the caste system origins as at least 2000 years old. And although the intermingling of the castes started happened during the British rule, the division between castes never evaporated and the caste system is alive and well in India today. There is one small group here in Bangalore, s trying to get kids off the work site and into the art studio. So in a country of one billion, you're going to need thousands of groups who are actually performing outreach work.
7. Have some cash in your pocket (and your house) to deal with corruption.
Corruption in India’s hi-tech darling, Bangalore, In the Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer 2003, the results of a survey showed that Indians would like to eliminate or at least reduce corruption in the education system, political parties and the police.
8. Queues (or waiting in line, as Americans know it) are for others.
Oh yeah, queue cutting happens even at the multinational business where I work. Rudeness has no boundaries.
Walk Carefully, Drive Safely, and Have a Nice Day :)
4 comments:
Awesome study.Can be posted in Travellers guide to make things easy for new comers to Namma Bengaluru.
ok but this is not a public note to post on guide
ok but this is not a public note to post on guide
Hmmm.. need not be a public note but then will help those who want a real picture of the place and not get carried away by the way it is being projected (Like a Real Estate Phamplet)
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