Horn OK Please

If you thought traffic in New York City was bad, then you've never been to India. Yes, NYC taxi drivers seem crazy as they weave in and out of lanes to get you where you want to go as fast as possible, but at least they drive in lanes, right? I mean, in India people drive in lanes, too, until they decide they want to go around someone, but the only room to do so happens to be in between two lanes.
When driving on the narrower roads, cars come at you from the opposing lane as they are passing the vehicle in front of them. That's when driving or even sitting in the passenger seat can get scary. I've gotten used to vehicles coming at me, but if you've never driven in India I advise you not to sit in the front seat. At least in the back you can just look out the side windows. The front seat forces you to look out the windshield, and well, you maybe have the urge to scream a couple times. Although I will have to say, for all the "crazy" driving, I didn't see any accidents. You would think that with drivers passing by going into the oncoming lane there would be more accidents. I guess in the end it's all about the skill :)
Speaking of skill, "how many Indians can you fit on one motorcyle?" is a fun game. Well actually it's not really a game, it's more a "hey if you've got nothing else, then this is what you have to do." The most I've seen is three men on one bike. The number four comes up when you start adding children to the equation...a family of four (two parents, two kids) seems to fit quite comfortably on a Hero Honda Splendor. I swear as soon as the child can sit up on it's own, it will sit in front of dad on the bike. Child number two goes in the middle while mom takes the rear. Two-year-olds in India have more experience sitting on a motorcyle than I do. Then again, I don't sit on motorcycles that often.
And then there is the use of the horn. You cannot drive in India if you don't have a horn on your vehicle. The horn is used to warn pedestrians, bikers, other vehicles of the fact that you are there behind them, going around them, or coming around a bend. Whether you're driving in the city or in the village, you'll hear people honking their horns. Even the trucks ask you to honk your horn at them if you want them to get out of the way. The back of all trucks are painted with the words "HORN OK PLEASE" or similar statements such as "BLOW HORN," "SWEET SOUND," "AWAZ DO."
The trucks are actually my favorite part of Indian roads. I don't know why, but I've always liked looking at them. It's probably because the trucks there happen to be prettily decorated/painted with flowers and designs and such. That, and my weird self has fun reading the license plates and trying to figure out what state the truck is from.
Oh and another fun part of Indian vehicles is the revers tones. Here in the U.S. mostly big trucks and school buses have a tone for when they are reversing. But in india even small cars have reverse tones. Some tones are songs or just catchy tunes or a simple beep. But then there's that one guy who decides he wants to be unique so he makes his reverse tone the sound of a ringing telephone. Yeah, you're unique alright, but your tone is going to be noticed by no one as it sounds like a phone! No one pays attention to ringing phones unless it's their own!
And how can I forget to mention that roads are shared with cows, bullocks (oxen) and goats. As far as I'm concerned, the animals respond better to honking than the humans. At least when you beep at the goats in the road they move out of the way quickly. Humans, on the other hand, move only after repeated honking or they don't move at all (mainly the large groups of possibly drunk party-goers) so that you're forced to slowly inch forward until they have to move for fear of being run over.