In India, traffic moves along the left lane, but in the US it is the other way around. For newcomers, this is a constant source of confu­sion, because they have a diffi­cult time figuring out which way to look before crossing the street. Obviously the best way to deal with this problem is to err on the side of caution and look both ways.

Cars in the US are built differ­ently. The gears are simpli­fied — see automatic trans­mis­sion — which means that there is no need to change gears as the car speeds up or slows down. This also affects the way people drive their cars. For instance, when a red light turns green, a car in India would start moving gradu­ally, the gear would be changed and then the vehicle would speed up. In contrast, a person driving a car in the US would simply press down on the accel­er­ator and it would be off as quickly as possible. It is as if there were a perfectly functioning system of speeding vehicles that the driver wanted to join in the smallest possible time so as to become a part of the mainstream.

One of the strange things for an Indian going to New York is the way vehicles stop and give way to pedes­trians. Where there are zebra-crossings, cars slow down to let people pass. At the same time, it is almost assumed that pedes­trians will not attempt to cross the street at any other place. I think this phenom­enon is tied up to the technology involved — cars can afford to stop frequently because they speed up very easily afterward.