Chinese Traffic

now THATS irony!

As an American living in China I can say that traffic in China is one of the most maddening things about living there. It is not the sheer numbers of cars, it is the fact that the average amount of experience across all drivers in any given Chinese city is under one year. Couple that with the fact that cars are a recent luxury so no one has grown up with an understanding of traffic flow or decorum. Finally, everything is further complicated by the Chinese mentality of me first, not what is going to make more sense to keep traffic flowing more steadily. I am getting so angry just thinking about it, and am not looking forward to returning at the end of next week...

I liked China better when everybody rode a bicycle.

I waited in line all day once in 1988 to see Mao's pickled body.

He looked like shit!

From the looks of it, the main problem is that it's a six lane roundabout, and each incoming road has four lanes. How the heck can you expect something like that to work smoothly?

I've never been to China, but have been to other 3rd world countries, and this doesn't look much different than the traffic in those places. If there are traffic controls at intersections, people pay scant attention to them. The boldest guy with the loudest horn gets through the intersection first. I wouldn't think of driving in a place like that myself, but have no problem riding with locals. It's amazing how people get anywhere, but somehow the traffic does get through.

Roundabouts don't work when the traffic gets heavy. Singapore converted all theirs back to conventional light signal crossings some years ago.

Of course, if a roundabout doesn't work then you *obviously* need a more complex one.

Like this roundabouts within a roundabout, aka the Swindon Magic Roundabout. There's even a Google Maps view: Link.

Ah, and this also reminds me of the popular YouTube clip of India Driving.

Why is everyone getting ON the roundabout and almost noone getting off? The exit roads are almost empty?

Lasse, it's because everyone is thinking "if I leave room for the people on the roundabout to get off at the exit after my entry point, then people on the roundabout not exiting there will take my 'place' on the roundabout and there will be no room for me so I should enter now, even if I will block the exit."

I've seen it happen at more than just roundabouts - but on roundabouts it's doubly stupid to think that way. When you're driving a bus, as are many of the drivers blocking the upper two exits, it may even be triple.

ooh, pretty! i can almost see it swirling on the screen.

in reality it's probably a soul-sucking, lane-hogging, stop-and-go (around again, damn!) nightmare.

but from afar, lovely.

from the picture the buses are blocking the way out of roundabout... they should installed traffic lights

in the US we dont use roundabouts.. not in the southwest

i would hate to be a policeman directing traffic there