Thanks to Andrew Bunbury in "Driven to distraction" (#115) for being so bold to write about completely chaotic driving rules in Kathmandu.

At one time, I was motivated to develop a computer game simulating driving around the streets of Kathmandu and marketing it with Sony or Microsoft. I dropped the idea, but if somebody is interested I can provide some technical assistance to mathematically simulate a bull sitting in the middle lane and its effect on traffic. Or help simulate a bus driver talking to his fellow comrade on the opposite side, completely ignoring the fact that traffic is backing up behind. Driving around Ring Road would be Level 1 and driving in New Road would be Level 10. The game will also allow selecting different vehicles: three-wheeler, rickshaw, motorbike, microbus. It will also have so called "God" mode, where you can drive around Kathmandu without any chance of being caught by traffic police and score by number of pedestrians run over and vehicles hit. The traffic police can use this computer game as part of a compulsory exam for all new drivers and provide the driver's license based on the score of the game. This computer game, I'm sure, would sell better than Quake or Doom. If Nepali Times doesn't stop provoking me with articles like these, I'll drop my PhD and concentrate on developing this computer game.

Rajat Rajbhandari
Interdisciplinary Program in Transportation New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA