Don’t.

I know this sounds funny, but for the person who is new to Indian Highways, this is one suggestion he should follow. This would help is conserving fuel and energy for the trip.

Put down your foot on the gas only when you know that you don’t have to take it off.

This is a normal (also nominal) distribution of traffic on Indian Highways. Cars on the right. Trucks on the left. Two wheelers that are not too fast on the extreme left shoulder. But it's equally possible to have someone come right at you on the wrong side of the road in a Tractor.

What about trucks and buses?

Overtake them, in all likelihood, they will be on the outer lane and the inner lane will be free for you. If its not free, just signal with your high beams and you will be given way. It’s the other variety, the private cars and cabs that you do not overtake.

Why?

Simple. A cab runs these routes more often than you or I would. As a result, they will be more accustomed to the twists and turns and hidden speed-breakers and bad patches. Get tucked in behind such a vehicle doing speeds that you probably would like to maintain. Follow this fellow from a safe distance and you will suddenly see that you are more relaxed, and you are doing better time. The brunt of road traffic get sliced through this ‘Pilot Car’ which you are following, including people and animal traffic. If you are traveling at night, only follow the vehicle if it has all its tail lamps and braking lights in place.

How do you decide on which vehicle to give pass and which one to not?

Largely depends on how many hours we have been driving. We do give pass to vehicles that honk less and use their lights more. It’s kind of irritating to have smaller vehicles with no patience for a truck.

Tail Board graphics

How many Kilometers do you cover in a day?

Depends on road conditions. A truck usually averages around 25 Kmph during the day, that makes it about 200 – 300 Kms in a day with stops and breaks.

Where do you eat?

We eat mostly at Dhaba’s, but sometimes that can be expensive as one can get stuck at an Octroi Gate for a day or more. We carry a stove and basic ingredients to cook anywhere possible actually.

I did see some of the truckers utilizing the time they are stuck in traffic on the highway to cook, eat, take a bath.

What do you have to say about private vehicles and smaller cars on the highways?

They are irritating. They have much powerful lights and they tend to drive on high beams always. (we did check out the lamp brightness of our car against the 4 lamps on the truck, the car was anyday brighter, even with stock 55/60 W lamps) What the small cars do not understand is that its very difficult to maneuver a truck. It takes a considerable amount of effort to change lanes. With bright lights shining in the face, it gets near difficult.

Take on overtaking from the left?

Ask a truck to give pass. Blink a couple of times, then honk. If the truck CAN change lanes, probably it will and let you pass from the right. If it cannot then it will give the indicators on its left, and you are free to pass from the left. Sometimes they may not have working indicators, in this case the truck wont stray from the inside lane and you can pass from the left. But do try, blink and honk. A truck driver has near to zero visibility of things coming from its left.

Also

Do not follow a truck to closely. The vehicles are not made to class and sometimes they may stop without even a brake light glowing. Even if we gear down, the reduction in speed is quite a bit for a car to manage. Maintain a safe distance, if a car hits the rear differential, its the differential that will win.

If you see a tilting load, try and tell the driver about it, as the driver might not know that his cargo is tilting and becoming off balance.

The Indian truck is a unibody of sorts. The cabin is physically connected to the loading bay to give the driver the idea of what’s happening behind. If its a cargo that is shifting around, the driver is able to judge it by the movements of his cabin. Newer trucks, which have separate cabin do not allow this and often the driver is oblivious to a shifting cargo.