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Road Rules and Traffic Regulations in India - Driving Nuances

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1. The absence of any rules is the main feature of road traffic in India. Random and even chaotic traffic that reigns on local roads can easily astonish and frustrate even most experienced motorists who can easily adapt to traffic in other countries.

2. In addition to traditional cars and motorcycles, in India you will see some "exotic" vehicles. Quite often you will see rickshaws, camels, elephants, and carts loaded beyond their capacity on the same road with cars. Moreover, some pedestrians prefer automobile lines to usual sidewalks.

3. Left driving is officially adopted in the country, and this fact can significantly worsen the situation for many foreign guests. It is also necessary to take into consideration unique characteristics of roads in literally every town. Some traffic rules that are normal in one city may be simply unacceptable in another city nearby.

Nuances of Car Rental in India

To save on your rental, we advise to book your car in advance. You will save the most if you do this several weeks or even several months prior to your trip. Rental offices in India usually raise rental prices over time, based on the number of cars left available for the accounting period.

When looking for an exotic car (cabriolet, minivan or limousine), we advise to check in the rental offices located at airports, as they usually provide much wider choice comparing to offices in urban areas.

Upon receipt of invoices, bills and documents for your car at the rental location, please compare the obtained data with your voucher. Quite often, employees of rental offices in India try to add optional charges or services without informing customers.

It is very important to pick up your car at the rental office in India in a correct way. Prior to leaving the office, carefully inspect the car for various defects, and ensure that all the discovered defects are mentioned in your rental documents. In case of a non-compliance found, place a demand for correction to the rental officer.

You can always check our car actual rental offers in India. Simply use the search form at the top of the page. We guarantee that you will not find better prices anywhere else!

4. You will find roads of satisfactory quality in large cities only, while in the country you should be prepared to see very challenging conditions. Unprepared drivers or drivers with little experience are even not recommended to travel to remote areas of India - slippery dirt roads with lots of sharp turns are very difficult to overcome.

5. The absence of road markings, road signs and signals can also be misleading for drivers from other countries. Locals need no markings or road signs. Even if some road really has signs and markings, no one would still pay attention to them.

6. Of course, there are traffic regulations in India, but for locals they are nothing but a formality. You should be prepared that no one even cares about these formal rules and, of course, no one follows them. Even roads of the capital have so chaotic traffic that foreign drivers are deeply shocked when they see it.

7. In spite of the fact that local motorists and other traffic participants do not follow any formal rules, accidents are rare in India, and fatal accidents are an exceptionally rare tragedy. If you look carefully at chaotic traffic at least for a couple of minutes, you will notice that in true this unorganized motion is well-ordered.

8. Drivers of vehicles communicate actively with each other using honks and body language, and this helps them avoid collisions. On large roads of the country the noise from car honks never ceases even for a minute, but in this country it does not signify the dissatisfaction of drivers, but rather an ordinary communication.

9. Attentive drivers will surely notice one more interesting fact about cars in India – they have no side view mirrors. This happens because of one fact – because of the flow of numerous cars on narrow roads it is almost impossible to keep side view mirrors safe and undamaged.

10. Actually, the cars produced in India simply have no side view mirrors right from the start. Taking into consideration this peculiarity, it is easy to understand why sound signals are so important there. Many cars even have special stickers with such slogans as «Horn Please», «Blow OK Please» or «Blow Horn» on the rear window. As it is not hard to guess, these stickers encourage other drivers to use sound signals actively.

11. When describing some distinguishing features of local cars, we simply cannot fail to mention their compact size. Local drivers choose smaller cars because they are more convenient to drive on congested roads. Almost a half of locals prefer even more compact vehicles - mopeds and motorcycles.

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