The Rules of the Road…in China.
A lot of foreigners who first arrive in Shanghai are immediately put off by the seeming chaos that are the public roads. Not only are there hordes of people everywhere, there are tons of bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, trucks, busses, what have you. The sheer multitude isn’t what really gets their goat, though, because it isn’t like the bumper-to-bumper gridlock “nightmare” back home during, perhaps, rush hour commutes. It’s the rampant disregard for what they believe to be obvious traffic rules and laws. To be certain, there is traffic law in China, a plethora of rules that dictate where, when, and how one can drive. Drivers are supposed to yield the right of way when fleshy pedestrians are crossing the streets. Cars are supposed to drive within their lane, not cross into oncoming traffic, and refrain from honking at everything in sight. Those involved in an accident should pull over to the side and not impede traffic. Etc. Etc. Etc.
There are rules.
It’s just that most people don’t really give a damn because…well…no one else does. To a degree, it is a vicious cycle, and to a further degree, we can be certain that improvements will occur as China develops. Old habits, as usual, are simply difficult to change, especially when there are enough people for one to hide their violations in. Can you imagine honking at a police officer to get out of your way? Probably not, right? That’d be paramount to asking for trouble.
In China, I’ve seen it multiple times.
Why? It is hard to say and the reasons are many. In a way, the officers may be too lazy to really do anything about it, especially if they’re actually senselessly holding up traffic (which they often do), and other times, there’s just not much fear of the law.
It is, then, no small wonder that many foreigners have a certain amount of paranoia when it comes to walking around on the streets or riding in taxis. With all this madness, there must be many poor chaps who get injured or bite the dust each day!
But for all the frightening hustle and bustle of the city proper, the outskirts and countrysides are far worse. There are less crosswalks but just as many people, and all of them want to cross the street at random unmarked points and at the most random–if not inopportune–times. Mopeders (uh, what’s the word for someone who rides a moped?) and bicyclists don’t give a rat’s ass if they’re holding up traffic in the middle of the road, blind as they are to flashing high beams, deaf as they are to honking horns. Motorists slalom through the fearless pedestrians and it is pure anarchy and aggravation.
For example, if you have two lanes going one direction, you’d expect that traffic could flow on both lanes, right? Not if one of the lanes is blocked by people, bicycles, or mopeds all waiting for a hole in the now single-file car traffic to rush through to the other side like illegal immigrants at the United States-Mexican border.
To a large extent, the pedestrians in cities have learned to fear the cars and usually yield right-of-way to motorists and taxi drivers who don’t really think twice about taking it anyway. They might get a bit indignant if they’re hit by a bumper or a car creeps just a wee bit too close but none of them have the sheer smug, oblivious, indifference of non-motorist street-wanderers I’ve seen in the outskirts of how their selfish idiocy is generally making everything worse. To them, and to many people in China, all that matters is achieving one’s own objective at the earliest moment possible without any big picture consideration for how many kittens are dying because of their inability or unwillingness to, you know, be a good member of “a harmonious society.”
What I wouldn’t give to be able to just mow down some of these bastards. It would be incredibly satisfying to just hit someone, whether pedestrian or motorist, whenever they did something patently stupid and just laugh at them when they complain. I guess that’d only work if you didn’t really care about your car…and if your car could withstand all the damage…and if there was no law to fear…
…yeah.
Tags: anarchy, bicycles, city, Foreigners, harmonious society, laws, mopeds, motorists, pedestrians, police, rules, rural, traffic