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		<title><![CDATA[Bicycle Austin forum / Calcutta, India: door prize]]></title>
		<link>https://bicycleaustin.info/forum/viewtopic.php?id=227</link>
		<description><![CDATA[The most recent posts in Calcutta, India: door prize.]]></description>
		<lastBuildDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:33:39 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Re: Calcutta, India: door prize]]></title>
			<link>https://bicycleaustin.info/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=828#p828</link>
			<description><![CDATA[<p>You don&#039;t miss your water till your well runs dry...<br />god bless the quest for order in the west?</p>]]></description>
			<author><![CDATA[dummy@example.com (doughead)]]></author>
			<pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:33:39 +0000</pubDate>
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			<title><![CDATA[Re: Calcutta, India: door prize]]></title>
			<link>https://bicycleaustin.info/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=824#p824</link>
			<description><![CDATA[<p>I&#039;m actually in India at the moment so I can comment.&#160; First, Indian English is peculiar, so there&#039;s no telling what they mean by speeding. And also, that quote was by someone who runs a food kiosk, and for someone at that level of work it means that there&#039;s a better than even chance the quote was given in Hindi, not English, and who knows how it was interpreted and then translated.&#160; Finally, the media here isn&#039;t exactly renown for accuracy.&#160; On political issues the bias just screams off the pages.&#160; It&#039;s very different from the western press.</p><p>Now let&#039;s talk about traffic.&#160; I can&#039;t easily describe how the Indian traffic system works, it really has to be experienced.&#160; For the most part, it&#039;s complete anarchy.&#160; There are no discernible rules.&#160; The streets are a jumble of auto-rickshaws (three-wheeled motorcycles with a car-like body dropped on top, motorcycles, bicycle rickshaws, cargo bikes, bicycles, cars, buses, people, and cows.&#160; There are rarely sidewalks, people walk in the street.&#160; There is very rarely any lane striping (or stop signs, or traffic signals).&#160; Everyone jostles for space, and there is a *constant* cacophony of horn-honking.&#160; But here, honking is expected, it means, &quot;Look out, here I come.&quot;&#160; The backs of trucks and buses note that expectation with writing saying, &quot;Use horn, please.&quot;&#160; I think the prevailing attitude here would usually be, if you get hit, it&#039;s your fault for not getting out of the way.</p><p>Now, that&#039;s for a &quot;normal&quot; collision.&#160; I see their was some outrage over the dooring, which seems to be different.&#160; But really, the streets here are so fantastically dangerous it&#039;s hard to comprehend.&#160; I think nearly 90,000 Indians die in traffic collisions each year, which doesn&#039;t seem so bad comparing their per capita traffic death rate to that of the U.S., except (1) India has far fewer vehicles than the U.S., and (2) a huge percentage of the population never or only rarely exposes themselves to automobile traffic.&#160; So it&#039;s an apples to oranges comparison, but what I can tell you is, it&#039;s several, several times more dangerous to be on an Indian road than a U.S. road.&#160; One source I read, which I didn&#039;t confirm, said that 75% of road deaths here are pedestrians and another 20% are motorcycles and bicycles.&#160; That leaves just 5% for normal motorists and buses.&#160; It&#039;s a fantastic claim, but it wouldn&#039;t surprise me.</p><p>Crossing a street here can be extremely difficult.&#160; You might think, &quot;Why don&#039;t you just wait on the sidewalk for the light to change?&quot;&#160; My first question in response to that would be, &quot;What sidewalk?&quot;, and the second would be, &quot;What light?&quot;&#160; After one month and six cities, I don&#039;t think I&#039;ve ever seen a traffic signal.&#160; Occasionally there are police directing traffic the old fashioned way, but they&#039;re rare.&#160; It&#039;s interesting to see the critical mass idea that George Bliss talked about in Return of the Scorcher, where he said that when cyclists would try to cross a busy roadway, they&#039;d wait until more and more and more cyclists would roll up waiting, and eventually they&#039;d all force themselves into the roadway and stop traffic with their sheer numbers so they can cross.&#160; Pedestrians do the same thing here.&#160; But sometimes you have to wait a long time for there to be enough pedestrians.&#160; And even when there are, there&#039;s no guarantee that one or more of them won&#039;t get hit.</p><p>About speeding, rare is the city here in which speeding would even be possible.&#160; The roads are too thick with vehicles, people, and animals.</p><p>Anyway, it&#039;s a sad story, and it&#039;s not the only one here.</p>]]></description>
			<author><![CDATA[dummy@example.com (MichaelBluejay)]]></author>
			<pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:40:54 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>https://bicycleaustin.info/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=824#p824</guid>
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			<title><![CDATA[Calcutta, India: door prize]]></title>
			<link>https://bicycleaustin.info/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=821#p821</link>
			<description><![CDATA[<p>From The Telegraph, Calcutta, India:<br /><a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081217/jsp/calcutta/story_10261899.jsp" rel="ugc">http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081217/j … 261899.jsp</a></p><div class="quotebox"><blockquote><div><p>Car door, bus kill cyclist<br />A STAFF REPORTER</p><p>A 38-year-old man fell off his bicycle after hitting a car door that was opened suddenly and was mowed down by a bus on Prince Anwar Shah Road.</p><p>Suman Ghosh, an employee of a bookstore at South City Mall, was taken to MR Bangur Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.</p><p>Police said the Behala resident was on his way to work on Tuesday afternoon when the mishap occurred.</p><p>Witnesses said Ghosh was cycling at a moderate speed. While he was crossing a stationary WagonR from the right side, the driver suddenly opened the door.</p><p>Ghosh rammed into the door and was flung off the cycle. &quot;He fell in front of a speeding Calcutta State Transport Corporation bus on route S-31 (WB04A 5068). The driver slammed the brakes but the front wheels had crushed the man&#039;s head by then,&quot; said Ajay Karmakar, who runs a food kiosk at the Lords Bakery crossing.</p><p>&quot;The driver of the bus has been arrested and charged with causing death due to negligence,&quot; said an officer of Lake police station. The car driver fled leaving behind the vehicle, which was damaged by a mob.</p><p>Ghosh&#039;s family was shattered by the death of its main earning member. &quot;I do not know how I will break the news to my mother and sister-in-law,&quot; cried Ghosh&#039;s younger brother Sudipto.</p><p>The cops cordoned off the accident spot leading to traffic snarls in the area.</p></div></blockquote></div><p>&quot;The driver of the bus has been arrested and charged&quot;?&#160; Perhaps the bus driver was exceeding the speed limit?&#160; The article says the bus was &quot;speeding&quot;, though the use of the term here may not itself suggest a traffic violation.</p><p>The car driver&#039;s vehicle &quot;was damaged by a mob&quot;?</p>]]></description>
			<author><![CDATA[dummy@example.com (tomwald)]]></author>
			<pubDate>Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:52:07 +0000</pubDate>
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