Traffic: India vs the UK

Traffic in India versus the UK is easily one of my biggest pet peeves. I could go on a long rant about this, but it’s a crucial topic to discuss.

I remember when I first landed in the UK. I was walking from the train station in London toward my destination, hauling the largest piece of luggage I’ve ever owned. As I walked along the pavement, I heard this extraordinarily loud, rushing sound of tyres on the road. At first, I wondered if the roads were just in bad shape. But it wasn’t the road, it was the sheer speed of the traffic. Cars were cruising by at around 30 miles per hour, roughly 45 kilometres per hour.

Think about that. Right in the middle of the city, cars were moving smoothly at 45 km/h, creating a loud whoosh. Coming from India, that felt completely surreal. Back home, traffic literally crawls. Why? Because it’s so unpredictable. You never know who is going to pull out in front of you at any given second, so everyone has to drive slowly just to survive.

People in India often brag, “If you can drive in Delhi, you can drive anywhere in the world.” What a total myth. It’s just false bravado. When you actually get to a place with fast, structured traffic, reality hits you hard. Your legs start shaking because you realise how dangerously unprepared you are for vehicles moving at actual speed.

That brings me to my main point: why is Indian traffic like this?

It starts at the bottom. Getting a driver’s licence in India is ridiculously easy. When I was 16, I got a licence for my scooter. The agent simply asked, “Why not get a four-wheeler licence too?” And just like that, I was licensed to drive a car before I even knew how to operate one. That has to stop. The system needs to be strict, tricky, and rigorous, so that only competent, safety-minded drivers make it onto the road.

This isn’t just about traffic flow, it’s a matter of life and death. I’ve lost family members and close friends, people in the prime of their lives, to road accidents. Back in school, I lost my friend Konark. Later, my wife’s close cousin, Ashish, lost his life in a crash. I could sit here and list dozens of people whose lives were cut short simply because practically anyone is allowed to grab a vehicle and drive like they own the road, with zero accountability.

If European-style testing is too difficult to implement overnight, India needs its own solution. Here is what I would do: make driving education a mandatory subject in schools.

Teach it in government primary schools and enforce it in private schools. About 10% of the population goes to private schools and eventually drives luxury cars, but the vast majority of the road consists of the 75% of people riding motorcycles and scooters. Everyone needs to understand basic rules, safety, and road discipline from an early age.

If I were Prime Minister, fixing driver education and road safety would be my top priority. Every single year, we lose thousands of young, productive lives on the road, lives that could easily be saved.