Which side of the road to walk?
This has always been a point of argument with me and some of my friends when I walk with them. To understand this, you should have been to some place in India and tried walking on the roads (my experiences come mostly from Chennai). Indian roads are generally known for its bad drivers who has no lane discipline or the need for stopping before the stop line. Add some people walking on the roads and you get a classic problem of who has the right-of-way.
This might make some of you to wonder as to why can't people use the sidewalk (or pavement/footpath). The problem is, India isn't like most of the other countries. The sidewalk is filled with small shops which sell toys, rubber bands, bangles, etc., to the abundant deposit of urea caused by men taking a leak even as you stare at them with disgust. Sometime when the traffic is very high, this space is also taken up by bikes trying to reach the signal before the suckers who use the road. Also only some of the main roads have sidewalk and all the small streets and roads only have to make do with the fine dust laden road side.
So you have a to get down on to the street along with the other bikes and autos. Now that you have a rough understanding of the way Indian roads are used, walking on which side of the road gives you a higher probability of reaching your destination safely?
When I was a child, my father had always told me to walk on the right side of the road as it gives you a clear view of the vehicle which is going to hit you. This gives you two advantages:
- You can jump out of the vehicles' path as you can see it trying to mow you down before the sleeping driver realises that he is going to use a live human as a brake.
- If you are not fast enough to jump away, you can atleast get to see stunningly beautiful girl who drove the car and the license plate number (provided you don't get amnesia).
I am fine by their views as long as the driver does his job properly.
