Roads are demarcated into lanes.. In India, protocol is, the lanes are progressively faster towards the right.. Hyderabad however is an exception.. I bet even Rossi wouldn't be able to beat any Hyderabadi, partly due to the traffic and partly due to the lack of rules.. but having traveled over 700km in the past 4 weeks, I realised Hyderabadi traffic isn't as chaotic as made out to be by the media and outsiders.. the reality is that we do follow rules, the catch being, we make our own rules and then follow them..
In Hyderabad, just as everywhere else, there are two extremes of drivers..
1) the first kind will not change the lane.. by Darwin's theory of "Survival of the Fittest", they have realised that they are safest on the right-most lane.. hence, however fast or slow they may be driving, they will not change the lane.. the best examples of this species would be the RTC buses and the tempo-long autos with trailers.. they generally wouldn't be troubling you if you ride outside their lane..
2) the second kind are those that cannot stick to a lane for more than 50m.. even at midnight when all roads are empty, you can see them shifting lanes.. this species is rare and generally consists of bikers on shiny, new Pulsars, Apaches and now the R15s.. you don't have to worry about them in traffic either because they go as fast as they come.. just hold your line and speed, and trust HIM (HIM not referring to God, but to the other biker.. just believe that he knows how to ride his bike, because over half the times he does.. only rest of the times, its his meaner and younger brother who is still learning..)
Anyway, coming back.. Riding on the fastest lane in Hyderabad does not imply you are the quickest.. you are just lost in the traffic.. but in the midst of all this chaotic driving, you find that there is an underlying order to it.. so to ride safely and reach your destination faster, all you need to do is to follow the following tips ;) :
1) RULE No. 1: DO NOT FOLLOW THE RULES.. as far as possible "follow their opposite".. I am not kidding, its true.. everyone likes to travel on the fastest lane, so much so that its no more the fastest.. this also leads to overtaking maneuvers from the left, because there is no place left to the right.. you find that the left-most lane is left empty while everyone is battling it out on the faster lanes.. just take the leftmost lane and you can sometimes even reach upto 70kmph and easily beat out the traffic.. try it sometime.. Trying out the above tip might be difficult since long, straight, wide roads are scarce in Hyderabad, except in Jubilee Hills and Madhapur area.. but you try something similar in any turn.. the whole traffic is concentrated near the bend that if you take the longest curve, you can easily beat the entire traffic.. besides, you can also go faster, and bend more on your bike, thus giving you more riding pleasure..
2) RULE No. 2: Try to avoid the traffic.. you will find that there is a lot of unused road-space.. at many a bottle-neck region (such as at almost every turn), the problem is not that the road is getting thinner but that all the vehicles were simply cramming themselves into only a fraction of the road.. I will give you a real life scenario.. a car-driver on the right-most lane has to turn left.. he even has the indicator ON, but the biker behind him wants to overtake him.. as is the norm in Hyderabad, you need to overtake from the left.. so the biker cuts across all the lanes along with the car and almost ends up taking the left-turn himself before finally managing to get past the car.. along the process, the car-driver is confused which direction the biker would like to take and for the traffic behind, they all cram themselves into the left-most lane.. only few of the drivers take the lane just cleared by the car, and enjoy the long stretch of empty road.. try it sometime - you will find that such hiccups will also lead to empty lanes on the left, a little ahead..
And remember, there is no alternative to practising slalom racing..
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