Driving me wild

Our team of five American women climbed into a comfortable nine-passenger van. Our Asian driver sat on the right – opposite from the driver’s seat in the US – with no one beside him.

I sat second seat on the left. For three hours, I had a clear view of the road ahead.

Words cannot describe the experience.

In this south Asian country, all manner of vehicles share the two-lane roads: heavily laden bicycles, motorcycles carrying whole families, toot-toots (a motorized version of the rickshaw), ox-drawn carts, large trucks and buses and assorted cars and vans. Pedestrians and random animals wander in and out of traffic.

Broken white lines run down the middle of the roadways, but I’m not sure why. Motorists create third and fourth lanes at will, with absolutely no space to do so.

They pass at will too. We spent more time passing than not, often traveling head-on toward oncoming traffic with no seeming way to get back into our lane in time. Those moments when we weren’t passing someone, the vehicle coming toward us was. Drivers live by this rule: If you can’t get back in, assume the other guy will find a way to miss you.

Another rule also adds excitement to the driving experience: Do not leave a centimeter between you and the person, bicycle or motorized vehicle in front of you. If you get careless and leave an inch or two, someone will slip into it. We rode so closely behind some motorcyclists, I could have read the labels on their shirt collars if I’d tried.

Everything – except pedestrians and perhaps bicycles – comes equipped with a functioning horn. The horn’s sound reflects the vehicle’s size. The toot-toot’s horn says, “Toot toot.” The motorbike’s horn says, “Oo-gah.” Horns of cram-packed buses bellow like a foghorn.

We became well-acquainted with our van’s medium-sized “toodle,” hearing it every three seconds during every drive anywhere. At first we Americans foolishly thought the honking indicated constant road rage. No. The horn provides the crucial tool, the voice, through which people navigating the roadways communicate with each other.

Indeed, of the numerous languages in this region, the honk is the most widely spoken and the most universally understood.

Every driver uses his (or, more rarely, her) horn repeatedly and skillfully to let others nearby know: (a) where his vehicle is in relation to them, (b) how fast he is coming upon them and (c) who will lose if the two collide. Suppose your vehicle says, “Oo-gah,” and the one coming up behind you emits a foghorn blast. You have strong motivation to yield your segment of the pavement.

However, (third rule) even when the foghorn sounds three centimeters from your collar label, don’t glance back or show distress. Rather, keep going forward, eyes on the road, gauging exactly what path to take in order not to get creamed.

You may think I needed a nerve pill by the end of each wild ride, particularly the one where I had the great view. Miraculously, I did not.

All my life, I’ve been frightened of going overseas. Though I’ve done so several times, I always felt fear both before and during the trip.

This time, the moment I knew God wanted me to go to south Asia, I asked him for a miracle. I’d read Isaiah 54:14, “You will be far from oppression, for you will not fear; and from terror, for it will not come near you” (NASU). I prayed, “No fear. Not during preparation, not during the trip.”

The wild rides proved the ultimate test. But even then, fear did not come near me.

© 2007, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.