In the Lahore area
The signal turns green but the bike in front unfortunately refuses to start. The hapless biker is kicking the poor thing desperately while enduring a chorus of abuses played to the crescendo of horns, from all those stuck behind him
The scary traffic in Lahore gets scarier every day. The desperate measures employed so far to arrest its monstrous growth have proved inadequate. A drive as simple as one from home to office and back is fraught with perils more ominous than those faced by Marco polo while crossing the Gobi desert. En route one cannot but help observe a few distinctive aspects of traffic worth sharing with the reader.
Side mirror assassin: At the red signal where your car is queued up, a biker materialises in the narrow space between the next car and whirs past you, shattering the side mirror in the process. Try as much as possible to narrow the gap, the biker will always squeeze with similar effect. You are of course free to shout and scream because that’s all you can do about it.
Affable intruder: a driver on the extreme left lane suddenly remembers to take the u-turn. The time tested method is that he will pop out his hand waving it to stop the incoming traffic while apologising smilingly.
Ill-fated: The signal turns green but the bike in front unfortunately refuses to start. The hapless biker is kicking the poor thing desperately while enduring a chorus of abuses played to the crescendo of horns, from all those stuck behind him. It does start eventually but the signal is red again.
Abrupt stoppers: It’s a general practice among public transport vehicles, who on the sight of a prospective commuter suddenly park it anywhere on the road. The vehicle right behind them is left with two options: either bump into it or screech to a halt and be bumped.
High beamers. Although everywhere, high beamers are most frequently found on the motorway. God forbid if you are travelling below 100 km/h and hazard to enter the speed lane, you will be shamed and blinded back to your alley in no time.
Pathological honker: Traffic is blocked and there is a sea of immobile vehicles all around. A dedicated warden is holding up one or two bikers on the road shoulder for some minor traffic violations, completely insensible to the snarl up right under his nose. In this situation, the guy in the automobile right behind you concludes somehow that you are the culprit and starts to honk frenziedly till you are out of the woods.
Cheerful fatalists: Often you come across two chummy bikers chattering and high fiving in middle of road with such candor and ease while completely unmindful of everything passing around them or a pedestrian strolling the main road without even checking around for traffic.
Sadist: The car on your front is crawling in the speed lane, you request him with a polite honk to move aside, it doesn’t budge an inch. You honk again and it slows down further which riles you up. Now you blare it fervidly and it responds by diverging slightly to the left but before you can overtake him he swings back and makes sure you stay behind and realise who the boss is.
Latest inclusions to the traffic-scape are the members of freshly recruited dolphin police. Atop an impressive heavy bike and clad in an immaculate uniform, they will always be found, surprisingly, on the major roads where incidence of crime is minimal. In the much more congested and crime-prone inner city streets, you will hardly come across any ‘dolphin dude’.
Lane jumpers: Although ubiquitous, most annoying one is found at the toll booths. You are stuck in a long lane waiting for your turn when a car zooms past you on the right and positions parallel to the car at the top of lane. Now it swerves to the left inch by inch, ever so gently, to fit in. Off course it succeeds as we all know that lane jumping like queue jumping is a vice tolerated here without any repercussion.
Strategic free riders. Policemen standing at the picket signal you to pull over and you comply with, when you roll down the window glass a bit apprehensively, one of cops pops the surprise question ‘pai jan Thokar tikar la deyo gey’?(Brother will you drop me off at Thokar?).
Only forsaken places you will find in all maddening rush on the roads are the pedestrian overhead bridges. Seldom are they ever utilised by the wayfarers who would rather squeeze through the median fence or hop over it or jump over the drains. Buffaloes, dogs and cats having evolved a better civic sense do often use them.
