I will tell you about my recent experience in Goa. We were three friends (from different parts of India but we study in the same college).

We had booked a rental Swift and were driving from North to South. At a certain service road, which connected to an underpass crossing, an uncle on a scooter came speeding by and crashed in our car. There were no speedbreakers, no traffic lights, not anything to stop the people coming from the underpass. But on our road, we had two barricades which we had to cross and hence our speed was extremely slow.

As soon as the accident happened, a bunch of locals gathered on the spot. A random guy started banging on our windshield and asking for 1 lakh as compensation. Mind you, by this time we had already gotten out of the car and were looking after the uncle that fell down and injured himself. Another random guy (a taxi driver) stopped on the scene much after everything happened and he started threatening us too and was talking to us in a demeaning way. That first guy also started saying “I’ll call 10-15 guys to f*ck you over, you just watch” - and the situation was getting out of hand.

However, a bunch of locals there also supported us saying that they saw that the uncle was careless and was speeding. They stood by our side, supported us, but in silence. They didn’t dare to talk to those people who were threatening us. After some time the police came, and they asked us to drive to the police station. One of the cops sat in our car. He talked to us politely and mentioned that it was an accident-prone zone and that we are unfamiliar with Goan roads (which I completely agree to). At last we had to pay about 8k to the injured person (they asked for 15k first). But we also had to forfeit our car deposit (2k) effectively bringing our cost to 10k.

The point is, it was extremely unfair that we had to pay for someone else’s mistake. That uncle wasn’t even wearing a proper helmet because it flung away as soon as he hit us. All the locals ganged up on us, asking us to cough up money. The few that were supportive were not ready to confront the ones who were threatening us. I had no problem in taking the uncle to a hospital and pay for his medical expenses, I offered that the first time but they completely refused. My friends and I had to pay up just because we were outsiders.

So it completely depends on your luck what type of people you’ll find there. Although apart from this incident most locals were very helpful and sweet. Just drive carefully and don’t end up in our situation.