Driving a lot can make you an IDIOT, but not in India

A study in the UK has found that driving for two to three hours a day steadily reduces intelligence. But in India though, we think that your brain will be super fast if you drive for two to three hours a day. Here is why.

Indian traffic needs you to be super responsive, almost all the time

Indian roads are very chaotic, and just to stay alive, you have to be very alert and responsive. Driving on Indian roads actually improves your reflexes. And those who have slow reflexes end with a damaged car or a motorcycle, or worse, injured or dead. So, while folks in the UK and other parts of the west can actually get bored sitting behind a car’s wheel, and maybe become stupid because they have nothing much to do, in India it’s completely the opposite. Here your brain’s in constant overdrive. There’s never a dull moment on Indian roads.

Driving here even improves your body language-reading skills!

In developed countries, drivers use indicators to tell others that they’re turning. In India, we rely on body language, especially when it comes to two wheelers. Two wheeler riders simply look behind once or twice before taking a turn, and as drivers, we have to figure out the direction they’ll soon turn, and adjust accordingly.

And we drive a lot and use the computer a lot

The UK study also said that people working on computers and playing computer games increased brain function. In India, we use a lot of computers. Why, we’re the world’s IT back office. Considering all the driving and computing we do, we’re probably the world’s brainiest people. For once, we can thank our traffic jams.

We love manuals!

Automatics? Well, even our women drive manuals. We like to take control rather than have a computer do that for us, even if the traffic we face needs 15 gear shifts to cover 100 meters. Manuals keep our brains sharp as we need to constantly keep deciding which gear to keep the car/bike in. And with our traffic, that decision making process is probably more than anywhere else in the world. And more decisions means sharper brains.

We love animals

Yes, we love animals so much that we even share our roads with them. From cows and buffaloes to dogs and even elephants, you can see a variety of wildlife on Indian roads. And the sheer unpredictability of these animals make us ready for anything. Put a Westerner in a car in India and ask him to drive. And guess what F1 champion Lewis Hamilton had to say about driving in India,