i would never drive a car in china, many traffic lights are hard to see or interpret . i have never seen a stop sign which is weird

from people ive spoken to parking is the main issue, its costly in a lot of places and others it is often non existent,
Think things like direction are fine if you know your way around its easy, going to a new place may have some trouble if you cant read Chinese.
If you have not driven a motorbike or been in a lot of cars here it might be hard to get used to the style of driving on China roads...

I've been driving here for three years - No major problems besides inability to read characters so outside of Shanghai that is troublesome. Major headaches is the turning right at the crossroads, not lighting up after dark - especially bikes and taxis. And the sheer fact that everyone has their own idea of interpreting the Highway Code - oh, yes they do have one. And two of the rules are no smoking or talking on mobile phones whilst driving - even the Police ignore that. Other than that it is no worse than driving in Paris or Rome. Try it. As to buying a car - it's easy once you have that license and the cash, of course. It will be difficult for a foreigner to get a car loan unless you have some guanxi at the bank. Don't buy second hand here though the market is too immature and the garages rip you off.

I agree with Richard, accept you must try not to blow your stack when faced with the following : Driving at night, they pretty much drive with high beams on, no matter how many times you flash the driver they wont turn them down, when approaching traffic lights look in your left mirror, somebody is bound to pass you then cut in at the last second is they are and know they are in a left turn lane only. Give major room to motorbikes, i have never seen one of them do a "Life saver" look...As for buying a car, depending on your budget, but aim for 100,000 RMB or more, this cuts out the real crap made here. My first car here was a Chery A1, 58,000 RMB great for the first year, constantly in the reapir shop the second, sold in the third.

Don't do it.... the time you save by driving yourself instead of walking or taking a bus, you will loose ten-fold from the extra stress killing you in the long run. Horrible road conditions, other drivers expecting you to know exactly what they are doing (because they could care less about what you are doing), the lack of parking, the pedestrians and bicycles having no problem cutting you off, and let's not even get started with the hassle and headache the day you do get into a fender bender.

I find it difficult to drive in CHina and one of the main reasons is because most of the drivers on the road never use turn signals. Every cab that I ever took in CHina never indicated to the other motorists on the road that he was gonna make a turn. It's very dangerous!

Parking is horrible too! They don't invest enough money into building parking lots which makes the whole driving thing in China a headache. People have to do the 3-point parking because there is no other places to park besides on the side of the road in some places. 

Traffic lights don't seem to work that well and mesh with the pedestrian lights. I myself and others are constantly running across the road even though I was taught to always walk across.