junaid

Nobody talks about the pedestrians of Bangalore. Now these people are a completely different kind of creature on the roads. They play their part effectively in the traffic nightmare.

I ride my bike to work and I have encountered, yes, encountered these pedestrian a lot and have almost hit them with my bike quite a few times. I don't know whether I was lucky or they were. I have noticed that the pedestrians here can be classified based on their behaviour and how they cross the road. Below is how I like to classify the Great Indian Pedestrian.

The Traffic Cops:
You are cruising along a road which fortunately had light traffic and right there, even before you know it, a person is on the road, his hand put up indicating you to stop. And even before you oblige him and press on the brakes, he has started crossing! You end up pressing the brakes even harder and the tires screech to a halt. The person just walks away and you are left thanking all the gods you know for having tightened the brakes that morning. Another variety of the traffic cop is the Mother Duck variety. Here the person is generally a old man/woman who stops the traffic and is generally followed by his entire lineage. Kinda reminds of a duck followed by her ducklings.

The Deer caught in the headlights:
Now this is quite a dangerous variety. The person starts crossing the road and you see it and expect him to reach the other side comfortably, and so you do not slow down. But then all of a sudden this guy just stops and is rooted to the ground. He just stares at the road while you are desperately trying to swerve to avoid crashing onto him.

The Sprinter:
This variety of pedestrians are great sprinters and can run short distances at great speeds. As you ride you see these people on the kerb waiting, but showing no signs of crossing. So you relax. And just then when you have neared them, when you least expect it, they make a dash for the other side. And miraculously they make it to the other side without being hit by the oncoming traffic. It's a skill they possess and you gotta respect them for that I guess.

The Undecided:
This is a variant of the Deer variety. They cross halfway through the road. You expect them to reach the other side easily. Maybe they get scared of the traffic, or they are plain fickle minded, whatever the reason, they suddenly make a dash back to where they came from. And again you have brakes being jammed, tires screeching and traffic coming to a halt.

The Teleporters:
These people just suddenly appear on the road right in front of you, waiting to be crashed onto. You make desperate attempts to brake and thank god that your reflexes are still good. Its like they were beamed down to the road from some spacecraft and the alien scientists are testing our reflexes ! (i know, i watch too much of this alien non-sense on TV).

You know what the best part is, the pedestrians are involved in near fatal accidents and all of them just walk away as if nothing has happened and get on with whatever it is they were doing. Its amazing! And sometimes, i myself become a part of the Great Indian Pedestrian. But I'm not sure which category i belong to. I wish I had picture of pedestrians doing their thing on Bangalore roads, but unfortunately I don't have any. I will put them up if I get any.

NOTE: Above words are not mine and these are from here.

spy

Excellent categorization of Indian pedestrians.

I and probably every one faced such pedestrian every day and every where. I think pedestrians in our country feel zebra crossing, subway and foot over bridges are not enough for them to cross the road that’s why they opt minimum shortest distance and minimum shortest time taken path theorem (Dijkstra's or Minimum Spanning Tree Algorithm) like jumping in moving traffic, jump dividers etc to cross the road.

mayank

I have read all the points...pedestrians are also a prat of traffic jam...we face most of traffic due to pedestrians coz. when they cross the road they don't know from where cross the road, when cross the road, how cross the road like that...There are subways, overbridges but who cares...