Mumbai's Roads

If you are new to Mumbai city and happen to drive the car in the streets of Mumbai, be careful else you may face lot of difficulties. Mumbai's roads are crowded. You will find people walking in the middle of road. Although there are footpaths on both sides of the road but these are occupied by vendors leaving no space for the general public to walk on it. There is no seperate lane for heavy vehicles, bicycles or auto rickshaws. All types of vehicles move together. Nobody follows traffic rules. Cars, buses, Autos overtake each other from either side. On top of this, people cross the roads anywhere, anytime without bothering to look at the passing vehicles. If you are not careful , you are likely to knock them down. The roads are dirty. People driving cars, taxis, autos atc are in the habit of spitting in the middle of road. Some of drivers are in the habit of chewing Paan ( beatle leaves). When these drivers spit on road, it leaves a red mark on the surface of road. Police is nowhere to be found. These people get away with fines if caught doing the act. While driving, even if your vehicle scrapes through the passing vehicle for no fault of yours, you get the choicest of gaali ( abuse). There are potholes everywhere. During monsoon season, the condition of road deteriorates even further which aggravates traffic congestion. It is a nightmare to drive on roads full of potholes. It takes anywhere between 15 to 30 minutes to cross a stretch of 5 kilometres during peak hours. If you reach traffic signal, you will be surprised to note that even though traffic light shows red signal, vehicles do not stop at it. There is total disregard of traffic rules. Vehicles come from all directions. This is extremely risky and dangerous. In some select signals which are manned by policemen, drivers do stop the vehicle but after crossing half the road thereby blocking vehicles coming from opposite direction. If you want to take left turn at junction, even if there is a green signal for left turn, you can't take left turn because you will be blocked by another vehicle ahead of you who wants to go straight. You will find speed breakers on main roads without any zebra mark or danger signal. If you are driving in the night time, you wont be able to notice it from a distance unless you come very close to it and if you are not quick to apply brakes, you are most likely to damage your car.