Driving Self-Organization
“Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.” -George Burns
I learned to drive in Southern California. I’ve always been kind of proud of that fact. Driving in the southern land of pavement and potholes requires a special kind of aggressive driving in order to survive the freeway melee. You have to learn to barge into a lane when there isn’t any room, to turn left on a light after it turns red, to tailgate in order to keep others from cutting you off. That’s quite a litany of questionable driving practices. All in a typical day of driving in Cali. Don’t mess with me, I’m an expert.
That’s what I thought before I went to India.
Driving in a taxi in India was an eye opening experience. Silly little conventions like lanes are completely ignored. The entire road, from sidewalk to sidewalk, is your vehicular playground. Driving the wrong way into oncoming traffic is a matter of habit – how else would you get where you are going? I tried to count the number of times I was nearly in a head on collision, but I gave up – partly because I lost count, and (maybe) because I was distracted by my own screaming.
Don’t get me wrong: I was in complete and utter admiration. The level of self-organization and complexity was breathtaking! With what appeared to be a complete absence of rules, people managed to get to and from work every day amidst what appeared to be complete chaos. I very quickly resolved to never lecture anyone on the merits of self-organization ever again! Why? Because apparently I’m an amateur. If you want a lesson in professional level self-organization, don’t talk to me. Talk to a taxi driver in Bangalore.
Someone asked me if I thought I could drive in that traffic. My answer was yes, but not because I think I’m good. Quite the opposite in fact. The Indian driving system appeared to be remarkably tolerant of incompetence. The traffic ebbed and flowed around complete bumbling dolts with apparent ease. Contrast that with where I live in Seattle: one idiot in the left lane can shut down an entire freeway for hours.
Each day in India, I took a one hour commute to and from the office through complete chaos. We circumvented obstacles that would have shut down a US freeway for hours. The creativity on display was dazzling. And as an added bonus, I was thankful to be alive when I arrived at my destination!
Compare that to my commute in the US. Everyone lines up uniformly. We stay in our lanes. Creativity is discouraged. It’s not very exciting. My commute at home also takes an hour. It made me wonder: which system is more efficient?
Under what conditions is a system with fewer rules faster than a system with relatively rigid rules? It was tempting to look at the Bangalore traffic and speculate that perhaps it was faster in some ways. It was certainly more exciting (especially after a few beers late at night in an auto-rickshaw). However, a certain level of orderliness also has its benefits.
I find myself on my own humble commute now, cars stacked up in nice, orderly lines behind an endless parade of red tail lights – and I wonder, “What if we had fewer rules?”