[b3lha]

When I went to India, we left the airport and got on a bus to take us to the hotel. The road leading to the airport was a freeway with two lanes in either direction separated by a crash barrier.

The bus driver should have turned left onto the freeway until the next junction where he could do a U-turn onto the opposite carraigeway. Instead, he turned right and drove for about 2 miles down the wrong side of the freeway until there was a gap in the crash barrier that he could go through. The freeway was quite busy at the time, lots of traffic coming the other way at high speed and having to avoid us.

Another time we were in a taxi stopped at a railway crossing. It was an fairly narrow road with just one lane each way. A car from behind pulled up beside us and another squeezed in beside him. The same thing happened on the other side of the crossing. The entire width of the road on both sides of the crossing was packed with cars. When the barriers went up they all raced forwards and tried to get past each other and back into line in the middle of the railway crossing. It was crazy.

I actually think it's better when the traffic rules are not so strict. In Britain, the rules are very strict: You have to wait at red traffic lights even when the roads are completely deserted. In Italy, for example, you just check that nothing is coming and drive straight through. I'm not sure if that's the law, but that's what happens in practice. It's a much better system because it trusts the driver to pay attention and use their judgement rather than unthinkingly following the instructions of the lights.