[PRCo] Indian cultural differences

[Schneider Fred]

For those of you who did take the time to look at some of those you- 
tube videos of India, the rucus of automobile horns on the streets is  
different from here.   As our guides and bus drivers explained it to  
us, blowing the horn in India doesn't mean, "Get out my way you F--n  
S. O. B., I have the right of way."   Rather it means, "Hello friend,  
I'm here and I don't want you to get hurt.   Please don't walk in  
front of me."

A horn never wears out in the United States.   I suspect it is a  
renewable part in India because you do not drive two blocks in town  
without using it.

There was a case in Lancaster last year where a lady who was drunk  
went down the wrong expressway ramp and ran head on into a car coming  
the other way.   She killed two men.   Last month she was sentenced  
to two terms, each of ten years to be served consecutively.   In  
India, if you want to pull onto a non-limited access expressway from  
a home or gas station and you are on the westbound side but want to  
go eastward, you simply drive east against the current of traffic  
until you have a place to cross over to the other lanes.   That is  
much more expedient than driving a mile out of your way and turning  
around.   And an Indian expressway will have cattle sleeping on it,  
elephants carrying burdens, trucks, cars, motorized rickshaws,  
bicycles (except where they are on bridges through towns and then non- 
motorized vehicles may be prohibited but you still can't restrict the  
sacred cows), and perhaps even a camel caravan in the west.     I  
even saw a man walking down the middle of an expressway with water  
bottles on his shoulders ... it was explained that he was carrying  
water from the Ganges to another river to appease his god in the hope  
of a better monsoon to end a five year drought.   By the way, I never  
saw an accident on the roads in India.   The first one I saw in two  
weeks was after I got off the plane in New York ... then I saw where  
a dufus of a truck driver had hit an expressway ramp too fast and  
rolled a semi onto its side!    That was within 4,000 feet of JFK  
airport.