Mea Culpa Scooter

In Hyderabad, The scooter is king.

Like most cities in Asia, Hyderabadi streets are not dominated by the automobile: here, lesser forms of transportation rule. This is due in part to the fact that the price of a car is out of reach for most citizens (and despite some recent setbacks, cars are becoming a lot more accessible to "the great multitude"). In Hyderabadi streets, it breaks down thusly (in approximate order of density): auto-rickshaw, two-wheeler (scooter/motorcycle), car, bicycle, jay-walker, street cart-peddler, cow, donkey-cart. Now ato the mix the following conditions: the fact that at any time some of these transport vehicles are going the wrong way; that traffic laws (except in the few places where they are semi-enforced by uniformed officers) are totally ignored; that in traffic each lane often supports triple or more the number of vehicles that it should; that India has an astronomically high traffic-death rate; and that the density of exhaust fumes during peak traffic times reach truly hazardous heights. In other words, chaos, dangerous chaos.

So, of course I went ahead and bought a scooter! This despite the preceding, and despite voting with my feet (most of the time, anyway) for cleaner and better transportation. In NYC, I bicycle to work almost every day, even in freezing temperatures. I feel like a traitor somewhat to the cause, but considering the distance of my commute (9 km) and prevailing temperatures (90-95 Fehrenheit), I decided to go for motorized transport. Many people cautioned me against this decision, due to the hostility of the streets here. But in reality, I am finding that the challenges of bicycling in NYC are more or less the same as those of scootering in Hyderabad. It is a matter of degrees. The tricks I have learned back home in my 4+ years of zipping in and out of traffic carry over here.

Now if I could just get a decent battery . . .