Driving in Beijing

If you want to read a spot-on description of what it’s like to drive on Beijing streets, click on this blog replete with diagrams and minute detail. A lot of Westerners gripe constantly about Chinese driving. I personally find it not so bad. I lived in Colombia before where it was not uncommon to see drivers actually backing up on highways because they’d missed their off ramp. Also, if traffic got too heavy in one direction on a divided highway, cars would slowly pull over to the oncoming side and risk driving headlong into oncoming traffic.

Now that I’ve never seen in China. Nor have I seen street vendors selling six-packs of beer on street corners as was common in Colombia in the mid-1990s.

But the one thing that is unnerving to me in China is how once the light turns green, cars hoping to turn left immediately swerve into oncoming traffic with the intention of blocking traffic and slipping through.

It’s almost like a flanking block in American football, where you stop the on-rushing cars with the hope the fullback behind you can charge through. Only, there is no fullback behind. You’re hoping to bolt through yourself.

Another curious thing to me are the “no-look pedestrians.” They walk on red, not feigning even the slightest glance at oncoming cars knowing well that the weight of the law is on their side.

In most countries I’ve been to, authorities worry about cars being disrespectful of pedestrians. Here, I find the opposite. Pedestrians refuse to obey the traffic laws that bicycles and cars must obey. It’s upside down from the situation in Tokyo, where pedestrians will stand politely at a red light at 3 a.m., even though there is not a car within a two-mile radius.

Comments

[Joe Williams]

Some excellent observations! Your blog has just become unblocked here in Lanzhou, NW China. I very much enjoy your posts.

Thanks.

[Smith]

Hey! It is a People's Republic!!! That means that the people can be expected to have absolute rights over cars, bicycles, or anything else that gets in the way.

Aren't we glad that it is not a progressive people's democratic republic?

They would have to have elections to decide whether a car is allowed to drive past them.

[chriswaugh_bj]

I've seen plenty of driving like what you saw in Colombia, just not so much in Beijing. I have bad, bad memories of sitting in a clapped-out old Xiali taxi hurtling down the wrong side of a narrow, ice-covered road at rush hour with fully-laden coal trucks coming at me in Taiyuan.

[Roy]

I have to say, Beijing traffic is not representative of the rest of China. It's remarkably boring compared to Hangzhou or even Shanghai, although the traffic in Shanghai isn't as white-knuckle simply because there's not enough room to get up to speed. Try taking a taxi in downtown Hangzhou some evening. You can expect to spend at least half the trip on the wrong side of the road, and occasionally on the sidewalk.

[Jsinton]

Guess you've never been to Hanoi. Vietnam has the MOST dangerous traffic in the world. Standard procedure for a stop sign is barrel full speed into the intersection and make your left turn while missing whatever traffic happens to be there. The funny thing is no matter how much traffic there is, it always seems to be moving.

[Jsinton]

Guess you've never been to Hanoi. Vietnam has the MOST dangerous traffic in the world. Standard procedure for a stop sign is barrel full speed into the intersection and make your left turn while missing whatever traffic happens to be there. The funny thing is no matter how much traffic there is, it always seems to be moving.

[Charis]

I so enjoy reading your blog. I lived in China for a couple years and I can identify with so many of your comments. I actually liked the traffic in China because they just seemed to work things out. I called it organized chaos. They really knew what they were doing. I also did like the fact that I could cross a street with traffic on it, stop in the middle, continue on and make it to the other side. No way could you do that in America!