National Highway (NH) 17

You really can’t go anywhere from Udupi, north or south, unless you tackle National Highway 17 or NH17.  True to Indian form, NH17 varies from kilometres of six lane freeway quality, with or without line markings, to a one and a half car width that would do an Aussie bush track proud.  With the onset of the monsoon road verges give way to rivulets, and potholes have been renamed Hyundai holes; big enough to bury the four wheeler.

But it doesn’t end there.  Rules of the road don’t seem to exist, other than the Darwinian equivalent of motoring.  Watch out if you’re walking or on a bicycle.  Auto rickshaws are treated with disdain as they screech along, their two strokes spurting out appropriate volumes of exhaust.  Top speed is maybe 50 kilometres per hour, less if fully loaded.  Indicators going left, right, or both ways at the same time, they’re invariably in the outside lane, either heading in the same direction as you, or complete opposite.  Headlights on, often flashing, provide your choice of warning or protection from a likely head on.  Further up the vehicular food chain comes two wheelers, then four wheelers; the bigger clearly the more important.  Then trucks, buses; again the heavier the better.

Now for the driving experience.  Trucks fully loaded, slow but definitely in the outside lane.  Pass to the left, or if the truck is overtaking another truck, take the in between option.  Buses are not to be argued with.  Full throttle, full horn, get out of the way.  The bus drivers are on a mission from (or to) god.  Recently chased down NH17 by a bus named Vanessa, although there are plenty of Shri  something or others, that are equally dangerous.

Overtaking on blind curves and hills has to be an Indian driver speciality.  Rear view mirrors are a must, for the foreign driver, and I currently only have one, on the driver’s side.  Honking of horn signals I’m in the right!, even if it turns out to be a suicide mission.  Smugly move to the left and force the unsuspecting, law abiding Mr Safe Driver off the road.  It’s been explained as context dependent.  In other words, My mad context is all that matters.

Aussie in India Solution 1.  Move up to close the gap in front, and where and when the suicide driver backs off, slow down to allow his mission to be completed; contact with oncoming bus, truck, whatever.  Undeterred, some missions have an abort function embedded in the local driver mind:  keep moving across to the left.  I’ve got the body contact scars on the Hyundai to prove it.

Aussie in India Solution 2.  The fist bashing on the side of the overtaking vehicle, followed by the application of the bully bar; a sharp, pointed metal pick that can wreak havoc on bodywork, paintwork, maybe side windows.

NH17, just code for Darwinian motorway.