There are stats out there (that I don’t have) about the sudden rise in motorcycle and cars in Kathmandu as of the last few years. I don’t know what exactly the figures are and I won’t make up numbers, suffice to say, it’s a statistic that raises eyebrows.

Beside how more wheels on the streets have contributed to intolerable traffic and more pollution than my lungs should be subjected to, I find it most unfortunate that the drivers on scooties and in santros were not handed a manual on street manners. I have a theory that this lack of driving etiquettein the country is breeding a higher level (and more dangerous type of) road rage.

There are simple but massive differences in the roads of Kathmandu compared to highways in the west – and I’m referring to more than just potholes, poor paving, and wider lanes. The first difference is the noise. In the west there are almost no horns to be heard, but here, the blaring and the beeping and honking and tooting is enough to make you wish you were deaf.  Maybe it’s because I don’t drive, but I don’t know why someone would assume pressing the horn with the strength of Thor (or Hanuman if you prefer) will cause the vehicle in front to move… to space that isn’t there. If there’s no space, there’s no space. No amount of ‘my horn is so much louder than yours’ is going to change that.

When traffic finally does edge along and hands move off of horns back onto steering wheels, there comes the issue of right of way and overtaking. Again, I don’t drive and the rules still confuse me a little but regardless, where’s the harm in looking both ways for oncoming traffic before pulling into a main road (or pulling out into a side road?). Why the need to blast through as if you’ve transcended a space dimension and had no choice about where you’d land? For safety’s sake, I would think inching forward and removing any risk of collision would be preferable, but it sure doesn’t look that way.

One again, this idea of space searching seems natural when trying to overtake another vehicle, but I suppose it’s the dare devil in drivers here that insist on swooping into tight fits and almost running another vehicle off the road. The masters at this (maybe even PhDs), of course, being the motorcycle-wallas followed by the scooter drivers. Is there something about having two wheels under you that give you the squeezing skills of rats and cockroaches? They slide and squirm their way through the smallest of passages, and if I wasn’t busy being worried about being hit, I’d almost be impressed.

Which leads to my final point – it’s poor pedestrians like me who are at the biggest risk of being the cushioning for speed devils on bikes or impatient VIPs (Very Important Pigs) with blue license plates. Even when trying to utilize the faded zebra crossings, madmen (and women) in/on metal machines are obviously more important and have bigger and better things to do than let me cross the street. Everyone clearly has a destination (thus their presence on the roads), and everyone is in a rush, is there no one in this city who is blessed with the smallest scrap of patience?

But I suppose the heat, the traffic, the wait, the smell, and the pollution all make for agitated drivers, who then race and are rude and piss off other drivers who then take out their anger on other drivers and the road rage rises.

Saani has no real goals and aspirations but she sees opportunity in everything and goes with the flow. This is probably because she loves exploring and discovering. She writes for fun but for the same reason she also cooks, reads, and spends a lot of time on random websites that offer a chance to learn all sorts of tid-bits on life!

www.parakhi.com/blogs