Trucks Come Tumblin’ Down

It appears no road trip in India can be complete without witnessing a truck or two or three or four or five lying on its side in the middle of the road. The roads we drove were almost exclusively one lane each way, no shoulder and pocked with crater-sized potholes. The pavement was so uneven in places that the peaks and valleys would make a Nepalese Sherpa wince.

Bangalore is on the southern part of the Deccan Plateau so on our drive to the coast we had to negotiate steep mountain road grades. Trucks carrying enormous loads use these roads extensively. They lumber slowly up the hills with their loads shifting to new centers of gravity as they navigate the sharp turns on the horribly rutted roadways. Not every turn is navigated successfully. Our first witnessed mishap was a load of large teak logs scattered on the side of road. Not more than 200 meters later, another truck was lying on its side in the roadway. Oh my…

The trucks are not the containerized type of vehicles we see in the States. They have wooden, if any, siding and are typically overfilled with sacks of onions (saw one of those flipped over), iron ore, marble or granite blocks headed to the shipping terminal at Karwar. Many trucks right now carry huge bundles of leaves, hidden by tightly tied canvas coverings, going to cigarette manufacturing sites.

We came upon one accident where a small car had a mishap with a truck carrying large granite blocks. We think the driver of the car was killed. We also witnessed the remains of a head on collision of two tour buses. The fronts of the buses were completed destroyed. We are sure the drivers met their demise as well. Since the roads allow only one lane of traffic each way, drivers frequently pass slower vehicles with only a loud horn blast and a hope in the gods that the venture concludes safely. Nothing impedes the passing process; not a blind curve, obstructed vision or meanderings of the many cows and dogs that lazily walk the roadways. Oh my….