On Indian Roads, Is There Really a Place for the Two-Wheeler?

 There is something strangely contradictory about Indian roads.

India is a country where two-wheelers are everywhere. Motorcycles and scooters are among the most common forms of personal transportation. They are affordable, fuel-efficient, relatively easy to maintain and, importantly, practical for navigating India's congested cities and towns.

Yet, despite their enormous presence on Indian roads, two-wheelers often seem to have the least clearly defined place on those very roads.

There are lanes for cars in many places. There are lanes for buses on some roads. There are sometimes dedicated cycle tracks and pedestrian paths.

But where exactly is the two-wheeler lane?

For the vast majority of Indian roads, the answer is: there isn't one.

And that creates a peculiar hierarchy on the road—one in which the person sitting inside the larger and heavier vehicle often appears to have more "right" to the road than the person riding a motorcycle or scooter.

The familiar experience of a two-wheeler rider

Imagine a relatively busy road with three lanes.

A truck is moving slowly in one lane. A car behind it wants to move faster. A motorcycle or scooter happens to be travelling in the available space.

The car driver starts honking.

Not once.

Not twice.

But continuously.

The message is quite clear:

"Move aside. I want to go."

But where exactly is the motorcycle supposed to go?

The rider may already be towards the edge of the carriageway. There may be a broken road surface, an open drain, a parked vehicle, a pedestrian, a street vendor or simply no usable road left.

Yet the car continues to come closer.

And increasingly, it isn't even necessary for the car to honk from a distance. Some drivers simply squeeze through the available space, bringing the car within inches of the motorcycle.

For the person sitting inside the car, it may feel like ordinary overtaking.

For the motorcyclist, it can be terrifying.

A slight movement of the handlebar, a pothole, loose gravel, a sudden pedestrian, a stray animal or a momentary loss of balance can turn those few inches into a serious accident.

And when the car comes so close that the rider is forced towards the edge of the road, the two-wheeler rider effectively has nowhere to go.

The larger vehicle has won the argument simply because it is larger.

The Gurugram incident: when road aggression crosses another line

A recent incident on Gurugram's Golf Course Road provides a disturbing illustration of just how dangerous the power imbalance between a car and a motorcycle can become.

A woman biker, Shivani Chauhan, popularly known as Sia, was involved in an incident in which a car followed her and subsequently collided with her motorcycle. Video footage of the incident, including footage from her motorcycle, went viral. Police arrested the alleged driver, Kalyan Bainsla, and later added an attempt-to-murder charge after reviewing the available evidence.

The case is still a matter for the legal process, and the accused has disputed the allegation that the collision was intentional, reportedly describing it as an accident.

But regardless of what a court ultimately establishes about intent, the footage and the subsequent investigation raise a larger question that goes beyond this particular case:

What happens when the ordinary imbalance between a car and a motorcycle turns into deliberate aggression?

A motorcycle rider has very little physical protection against a car.

The car weighs substantially more, occupies more road space and surrounds its occupants with a protective structure. A motorcycle provides none of that.

In the Gurugram incident, the woman was thrown from her motorcycle onto a busy road, where she was exposed to other moving traffic.

That is precisely why road aggression involving two-wheelers cannot be dismissed as merely another argument between motorists.

The consequences can be radically different.

A disagreement between two car drivers can result in damaged metal.

A confrontation between a car and a motorcycle can result in severe injury or death.

The troubling progression: from honking to intimidation

This is also why everyday behaviour on Indian roads deserves attention.

There is a spectrum.

At one end is the impatient driver who honks because a motorcycle is not moving quickly enough.

Then comes the driver who overtakes extremely close to the motorcycle.

Then the driver who deliberately squeezes the rider towards the edge of the road.

And at the extreme end is outright road rage—where a vehicle itself can become a weapon.

Most impatient drivers will obviously never reach that extreme.

But dangerous road culture doesn't emerge overnight.

It is built from thousands of small behaviours in which people begin believing that their urgency is more important than another person's safety.

The Gurugram case is therefore important not because it proves that every car driver treats motorcycle riders badly—it certainly does not—but because it demonstrates how vulnerable a motorcyclist can be when a confrontation with a larger vehicle escalates.

The strange psychology of Indian roads

There is also a cultural problem here.

On Indian roads, vehicle size often seems to determine road priority.

A truck expects a car to move.

A car expects a motorcycle to move.

A motorcycle often expects a bicycle or pedestrian to move.

And the person walking or cycling is left with the least negotiating power of all.

This is not a formal hierarchy of traffic law.

It is a hierarchy created by mass, speed, confidence and aggression.

The bigger vehicle often behaves as though it owns the space.

The smaller vehicle learns to surrender it.

That is particularly problematic because the consequences of a mistake aren't equal.

If two cars come within a few inches of each other, there may be a scrape, a damaged mirror or some bodywork damage.

If a car comes within a few inches of a motorcycle and forces it off balance, the consequences can involve a human body hitting the road.

That difference should be at the heart of how we think about road safety.

Should two-wheelers have a dedicated lane?

Ideally, on roads where traffic volumes and road width justify it, dedicated two-wheeler infrastructure would be worth considering.

But there is an important distinction.

Simply painting a narrow strip on the extreme left of a road and calling it a "two-wheeler lane" would not solve the problem.

Such a lane would need to be designed properly, protected where appropriate and kept free from parking, encroachment and sudden obstacles.

Otherwise it would become just another unusable piece of road.

There is also a practical problem: Indian roads vary enormously.

A dedicated motorcycle lane may make sense on a wide urban arterial carrying huge volumes of two-wheelers. It may not make sense on a narrow two-lane rural road.

So the solution cannot be one-size-fits-all.

But perhaps the bigger problem is lane discipline

Dedicated lanes alone won't fix Indian traffic.

One of the fundamental problems is that lane discipline is weak.

Vehicles frequently change lanes without signalling. Drivers overtake from whichever side appears convenient. Motorcycles move through gaps between vehicles. Cars stop suddenly. Buses pull into traffic without warning. Parked vehicles occupy parts of moving lanes.

Under such conditions, the road becomes less like a system of clearly defined lanes and more like a constantly changing negotiation.

Two-wheelers are particularly vulnerable because their small size allows them to fit into gaps that cars cannot.

That sounds like an advantage.

In reality, it can become a disadvantage.

Because once everyone knows that a motorcycle can squeeze into a tiny space, other drivers begin expecting it to do so.

The two-wheeler rider is effectively told:

"There is space for you somewhere. Find it."

That is not the same thing as having a safe lane.

Is filtering between cars itself the problem?

This is where the argument becomes complicated.

Motorcycles naturally use their manoeuvrability to move through traffic. In congested conditions, filtering can actually be one of the reasons two-wheelers are so useful.

If motorcycles were forced to behave exactly like cars in every situation, one of the major advantages of two-wheelers would disappear.

Therefore, the answer isn't necessarily to force every motorcycle to remain permanently behind a car.

The real issue is predictability and safety.

A rider should be able to move through traffic without being aggressively squeezed by a faster vehicle.

A car driver should be able to overtake without encountering an unpredictable motorcycle suddenly appearing in the vehicle's path.

And both should understand where the other is expected to be.

That requires road design, rules and—perhaps most importantly—a change in driving culture.

The vulnerability of the two-wheeler rider

There is another uncomfortable reality that often gets forgotten.

The car has a metal structure around its occupants.

The motorcycle doesn't.

A car driver who makes an aggressive manoeuvre may be risking a damaged vehicle.

A motorcyclist who makes the same manoeuvre may be risking a broken bone, head injury or death.

This doesn't mean motorcycle riders should be allowed to do whatever they want.

They also have responsibilities: helmets, speed control, signalling, maintaining safe distances, avoiding dangerous weaving and respecting traffic rules.

But road safety shouldn't be based on the assumption that every road user is equally protected.

They aren't.

The more vulnerable road user deserves greater consideration.

The Indian paradox

And this is what makes the Indian situation particularly interesting.

Two-wheelers aren't some marginal category of road users.

For millions of Indians, they are the primary means of transportation.

For a family, a motorcycle may be the difference between being able to reach work, school, college or a hospital conveniently and not being able to do so.

For many workers, delivery riders and commuters, the motorcycle is effectively their workplace.

Yet the infrastructure frequently treats them as though they are simply smaller versions of cars.

That doesn't necessarily work.

A motorcycle has different acceleration characteristics, different stability, different braking behaviour and dramatically different consequences in a collision.

It occupies less space, but its rider is much more exposed.

Infrastructure should acknowledge those differences.

Would a separate lane make roads safer?

Potentially, yes—but only if done properly.

A properly designed two-wheeler facility could provide several benefits:

• Reduce conflicts between motorcycles and fast-moving cars.
• Give riders a predictable position on the road.
• Reduce aggressive overtaking.
• Make lane-changing behaviour easier to understand.
• Potentially reduce the number of situations where motorcycles are pushed towards the road edge.
• Make traffic flow more orderly.
• Give road authorities a clearer framework for managing two-wheeler traffic.

But there are also potential disadvantages.

A poorly designed motorcycle lane could become dangerous if cars regularly cross it, pedestrians use it, vehicles park in it or road intersections repeatedly cut across it.

There is also the danger of creating a false sense of security.

A painted line doesn't protect a motorcyclist from a two-tonne vehicle.

So where traffic speeds are high, physical separation may be far more meaningful than paint alone.

Perhaps the real solution is "space", not necessarily a "motorcycle lane"

This is an important distinction.

We don't necessarily need to turn every Indian road into a road with a separate motorcycle lane.

What we need is a road system in which every major category of road user has predictable and safe space.

On some roads that might mean a dedicated motorcycle lane.

On others it might mean wider usable lanes and strict lane discipline.

On high-speed roads it might mean physically separated facilities.

In dense urban areas it might mean traffic-calming measures and lower speed limits.

And everywhere, it should mean enforcement against dangerous overtaking and squeezing.

The responsibility of car drivers

There is also something individual drivers can do immediately.

If you are driving a car and encounter a motorcycle ahead of you, remember one simple fact:

The rider has nowhere near the protection you have.

Don't treat the motorcycle as an obstacle that must immediately get out of your way.

Don't drive inches away from it simply because you believe there is enough space.

Don't use the horn as a demand for the rider to disappear.

Slow down if necessary.

Wait for a safe opportunity.

Overtaking a motorcycle safely may cost you a few seconds.

For the rider, those few seconds may make the difference between continuing the journey safely and ending up on the road.

And two-wheeler riders have responsibilities too

The argument shouldn't become "cars are bad and motorcycles are innocent."

Two-wheeler riders can also create serious risks.

Sudden lane changes, riding against traffic, excessive speed, riding without helmets, using phones while riding and squeezing through impossibly small gaps can endanger everyone.

A safer road culture has to work in both directions.

The motorcycle rider shouldn't assume that being smaller gives them unlimited freedom.

The car driver shouldn't assume that being larger gives them unlimited priority.

The road belongs to everyone.

So, is the current situation good or bad?

The present situation is problematic, particularly when it results in vulnerable road users being physically squeezed towards the edge of the road.

The absence of a dedicated two-wheeler lane is not, by itself, necessarily a defect. Many countries successfully operate mixed traffic without separate motorcycle lanes.

The bigger problem is the combination of:

high two-wheeler dependence + poor lane discipline + aggressive overtaking + inadequate road space + weak protection for vulnerable road users.

The Gurugram incident shows why this isn't merely an abstract discussion about traffic etiquette. A conflict between a car and a motorcycle can escalate into a situation in which the motorcyclist faces vastly greater physical consequences. Police have treated the Gurugram case seriously, with an attempt-to-murder charge added after reviewing evidence, while the accused disputes that the collision was deliberate.

India's enormous dependence on two-wheelers makes the issue even more important.

Perhaps we should stop asking why motorcycles don't simply "move aside" for cars.

Instead, we should ask:

Why has our road system reached a point where the smaller and more vulnerable road user is expected to continuously surrender space to the larger vehicle?

That is a much more fundamental question.

A good road isn't one where the biggest vehicle gets the first preference.

A good road is one where every road user knows where they belong, understands what others are going to do, and can travel without being forced into danger simply because they are riding a smaller vehicle.

India doesn't necessarily need to declare motorcycles the kings of the road.

But considering how many Indians depend on them, it is certainly time to stop treating them as second-class citizens of it.