A Trip to Hampi - part 5 - a note on traffic

On the drive to Hospet and Hampi on Jan. 9 we saw the remains of 9 serious accidents along the road. All but one of these clear involved trucks or lorrys of various sizes. The other one was a case where some one may have been struck by a vehicle or thrown from a vehicle and he was apparently killed. (The police were there and no one was tending to the guy, so we presume he was deceased.) Among the other 8 serious accidents it is possible that some people were killed or seriously injured, but we don't know. Several were overturned vehicles- on their side or on the roof. Some were loaded with goods and some appeared to be empty. We assume that most of these occured during the previous night and offer good evidence why people recommend NOT driving at night!
The roads leading out of Bangalore are generally a mess. There is a lot of construction underway to improve them, but for now, they are a mess and traffic delays are common. It took us about 1 hour and 10 minutes to get all the way out of the city when we left on the 9th. (We stopped for coffee at that point.) The highway to Chitradurga was generally very good, but we were surprised to see new "records" for how wide a load could be put on the highways here! The picture clearly shows something that just isn't possible. Yet, somehow, everyone manages to deal with these situations and move on.
National Highway 13 (NH13) which we took from Chitradurga to Hospet is not in such good condition. It have many very rough patches that are difficult in the day time, but would be dangerous at night. In addition the road is full of trucks. This is a mining area and those trucks account for much of the traffic, but also it is used to haul goods between the south and north of India. We passed a lot of trucks! Each one is a little risky as people may very well choose to try to pass you while you are passing the truck! People from the other direction may try to pass as well!
On the return trip from Hospet to Bangalore on the 14th (a Holiday) Jim counter 150 trucks going the other direction in just the first 30 minutes on the road! The density reduced some after that, but it was a big number of trucks overall- and those were only the ones going the opposite direction!
When we got close to Bangalore were were fortunate to have an ambulance pass us. Joseph then followed the ambulance for the next 30 min. or so as we made our way toward home. This saved a lot of time before some other people pulled in front of us and we fell behind. The other driver generally move out of the way of ambulances as best they can, but they are not very quick or diligent about it. It probably takes about 30% longer for an ambulance to get through here compared to in the US. This mostly because of the heavy traffic, but also because people do not move out of the way very quickly.
One picture shows something which we often saw on the smaller roads. There are a lot of people by the road who put bundles of grain on the roads and allow the trucks and buses and cars to drive over it! The purpose seems to be to get to grain from the stalks, but there may be more to it than that. They go out and sweep up what they want periodically and then add more to the piles. Of course, we saw lots of trucks and buses and cars with stalks of stuff being dragged under their vehicles!
In Hospet we found the traffic to be worse than Bangalore. This is a small city, but the roads are narrow and congested. Earlier we mentioned the railroad crossing. At RR crossings people fill up BOTH sides of the road on BOTH sides of the RR tracks while waiting for the train to pass. Then, when the gates open everyone moves forward in a big mess to try to get ahead of the other people. It ends up being a delay for everyone else. The idea seems to be that those who go to the front do get there sooner and those who do it all the time, and aggressively, get ahead in the longer run. This may be true, but is is not a good example of cooperative behavior. Similar behavior is seen in queues- people will often step in front of others and not think twice about it. It is rare that anyone complains. We don't understand why few complain- except that maybe they wish they had done it.
On the night of the 13th after left Hampi we were very pleased that there was no train causing the usual jam at the tracks, so we thought we'd get to the hotel, rela and have dinner and then rest. However, that was not to be. As we got into Hospet the traffic suddenly stopped. As we waited only briefly, suddening the other side of the road filled up with cars and truck and motorcycles and auto rickshaws all trying to move ahead of the normal traffic that had stopped. It seemed obvious that this was a stupid thing to do, but they did it! After waiting about 10 minutes we saw a little movement of a large bus from the other side- a few men were helping to shepherd it through the mess, but then nothing more came through. Janet decided to walk to the hotel while Jim waited a little longer in the car, but then got out to walk too. That left Joseph to stay with the car. He got some information on another route to his hotel. The walk was bad because there were cars every which way and any opening was quickly filled with motorcycles trying to squeeze through. This made it difficult to even walk! It was also dark, so we stepped in some mud too. Eventually, we could see that there was really no big accident or anything that stopped the traffic. It probably started with two buses that had trouble passing eachother and then everyone else just tried to move ahead and ended up blocking both sides of the road. We saw some police trying to restore a little order by clearing a path through, but meanwhile we saw vehicle after vehicle speeding forward on the wrong side of the road and blocking it again. However, about the time we reached our hotel we called Joseph and he said that the cops had managed to clear it well enough that he was moving to his hotel. Adventures in traffic!
The return trip to Bangalore took a bit more than 6 hours with one stop for a quick lunch in Chitradurga and another for coffee just outside Bangalore. We were helped by the ambulance in Bangalore itself. We got coffee at the same place as when we left Bangalore and we also brought back two bottles of water we bought there. We discovered that the bottles had been previously opened, so the assumption has to be that they refilled them with tap water and resold them. They did take them back and gave us 2 new ones which were sealed. This was a "reputable" chain coffee shop, so we assume they would have had problems if we complained to the head office. It is quite possible that the seals were just broken by accident, but we assume not.