Traffic

Traffic in China can get quite interesting. There are far more cars here than I imagined. They have been building roads as fast as they can, but the traffic is much thicker than I thought, even in BeiBei, a tiny city (by China standards) of 150,000.

Overall, it is much more sane from my perspective than India. I don't think I could drive in India. Here it would be a challenge, but I think I could do it. People generally follow traffic rules and somewhat pay attention to lanes. There are some unwritten rules however that one would have to master. For example: First makes right. If you can get your nose in front of someone in a lane, you then have the right to proceed. This applies to both lane changes and when entering the flow of traffic. There is usually no hesitation when coming out of a side street into busy traffic. If you can squeeze the front of your car into a lane, you have then claimed the right to that lane.

It is fascinating to watch the logical extension of this when a bus decides to make a U-turn on a busy road, especially when you are inside the bus! The driver simply starts in the rightmost lane or even the side of the road after dropping off a passenger and then slowly edges its way into the right lane until traffic can't get around the bus and has to stop. Continue onto the next lane in a similar manner until that lane has no choice but to stop, and then continue on into the lanes going the other way until the U-turn is complete! Usually, the four lanes will wait patiently, but only when it gets to the point that there is no choice. If you don't make it all the way, no worries, you just back up as needed still blocking all the lanes of traffic.

Taxi drivers are the most impressive as they squeeze into slots you wouldn't think are possible. Often they will straddle lanes looking to see which will have the advantage, but this has a risk as other cars, particularly taxis, will straddle the next lane and nose in front and claim the lane. I have seen this happen from both sides simultaneously.

I think much of this is just an extension of foot traffic which makes sense given the short amount of time cars have been prevalent. If you think about navigating a crowd of people such at a crowded fairgrounds, you tend to follow general flows but don't worry about "lanes." If there is a gap, you usually have no qualms about slipping into that slot. And if you are entering a big flow from the side, you just slide into whatever little slot is there! (Jim)

Footnote from Connie: My most amazing bus ride occurred when there was a traffic jam ahead, but our bus driver wanted to go straight anyway. So, he simply went into the far left lane of traffic (into oncoming traffic) and proceeded down that lane for awhile. When that became problematic, he went up on the sidewalk! I'm sure the pedestrians that day were not expecting to see a bus bearing down at them. I was glad I was IN the bus!