India is a developing Asian country which faces various traffic problems. Among which side friction is one of the major problems in metro cities. Side friction can be defined as all that activities which are going on or along the roadway facility. It includes but not limited to pedestrians, slow moving vehicles(SMV), on road parked vehicles, roadside vendors, on-road stopping vehicles. These factors are frequent in developing countries but they are sparse and random so making it of less interest for the researchers for their studies. But in the day to day life everyone is interacting with these factors. So this paper is mainly focused on reviewing the influence of side friction causing parameters on traffic speed and road capacity for urban arterial roads. Many urban areas in India are influenced by side friction which needs to be defined with their causes and influence to arrive at mitigation techniques using relevant design standards.