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Q: What's wrong with the Chinese (mainland) traffic?
I can't seem to understand what's the problem with the terrible driving in China. That gets worst when I see a couple of policemen "controlling" the traffic during rush hour. They stand there and you still see everyone crossing the street when the red light signal is on, including little children accompanied by their irresponsible parents, etc. Also, do you ever feel safe when crossing the roads when the green light signal is on? I never do. Just when I am crossing the road, cars keep driving towards me, coming from everywhere. Any opinions on this?
Here is how you get the situation China is in
1. Create an extremely poor society through years of starvation
2. Make sure that people at most use bicycles for several decades
3. Slowly introduce automobiles, by having the leaders get chauffeured around in imported luxury cars
4. Make sure the driver is instructed to not stop no matter what is on the road, just plow through the crowds if they don't move.
5. Slowly allow people who have witnessed only selfish, dangerous driving by party-cars (sound more positive than it is)
6. As the leaders are only occupied with their own interest, they do not care the rules are not followed, giving people a sense of being free and in control, when in fact so many people are killed each day on the Chinese roads
7. Let this continue for years as more and more people get rich enough to buy a car.
You can also see that the unwritten rules dictate that the bigger vehicle always has the right of way. Bike wins over pedestrian, car wins over bike, truck wins over car etc. And not just due to the laws of physics, because. Expensive Mercedes can win over a dumptruck in the "give way" game.
Then there are some cultural things at play. Generally people only care about their own people. If you hold guangxi with all people in the country you could cross the road safely.
Further there is of course the problem that people are not being educated, no one thinks seatbelts are needed on the backseats. Look at how many people have rigged their seatbelts so it looks like they are using them, but they are just hanging loose.
TianjinCity:
Thank you for your well-explained reply. I think everyone does this bad driving because they see no one doing it differently. Bikes do win over pedestrians. In fact, everything wins over pedestrians. Being a pedestrian in China is also another issue. The sidewalks are constantly blocked by bicycles, cars, stinky garbage, trees, all sorts of things.
xinyuren:
Add to this the fact that you can often buy a license without going thru any training whatsoever. I was just talking to my carpenter this morning about this very topic. He bought a truck and he has a license, but he doesn't know how to drive yet. He bought the license and he said a driving class won't make a difference. This is China.
TianjinCity:
I guess a few deaths everyday due to traffic accidents won't make a difference or will even constitute a problem to this overpopulated country. Let them be loose and "free" to drive the way they want and kill each other. That's the way forward.
Scandinavian:
as with everything else, corruption is the foundation of the problems in China, the CCP's power is founded in corruption.
Traffic in China makes a lot of sense:
* What matters is yourself and your "tribe" (family, friends). Being an ass to those not in the "tribe" is something that your mind can not even conceive. Do as what is most convenient for you, regardless of consequences to others.
** Never slow down, you would loose precious seconds. Horn instead, to tell others to push
** Go counter way if it saves you a cross road crossing
** Don't stop at the red light, there's nobody in you field of vision anyway, why wasting a few seconds
** Don't put your belt, it's hard to breath with those stuffs.
* Priority rules are based on your inertial mass and power of nuisance. Thus, a big truck wins over a bike. Things like red lights are irrelevant. But an official car will win over the big truck.
Then goes the road education, learned at the driving school. How driving school works in China ? (Based on actual experience of several relatives)
* Cram the theoretical exam
* Learn most of your driving on a track. With 20 others dudes waiting for their turn with the overworked angry instructor, you will spend 10 minutes shift to learn each basic maneuver. Like, one day to turn right, one day to turn left etc. In one day of sitting in the cold you will spend 30 minutes with the angry instructor.
* Once your ready, just a couple of hours on real traffic, with really sloppy standard from the instructor
* Hu, why bother, just pay some money under the table and get a license already !
It makes you think it's badly broken on Cthulu-esque proportion ? If it can make you feel better, I've seen the same standard of driving in Vietnam. According to friends who lived there, Nepal and Egypt are worse.
TianjinCity:
What pisses me off is that China is trying to be by all means the world's leading economy when there are so many other things to work on and to improve. I am not surprised that the same or worse happens in Vietnam, Nepal or Egypt.
DrMonkey:
Agree, 2nd economic power with a civil society broken to such levels sounds shaky. It's a bit like the university entrance exam here : it's about how it look from the outside, not about how things actually are :(
TianjinCity:
Yeah, that's exactly what I feel about China at times. Everything is made too look good in front of other's eyes, when in reality, the deep issues still lay rotten underneath a beautiful outside layer. I don't mean to say that everything about China is bad - it is not -, but this country still has a long path to become a better country - and no I don't mean it in comparison to my life standards or the perception of what normal or good is I learnt when I was growing up. Some things are just not right about this country! That's all.
China is a developing country, what did you expect?
Maybe the China Lonely Planet book was sold out at the bookstore so you bought the Hong Kong book instead assuming it'd be the same. 
TianjinCity:
2013: China --> The world's second largest economy --> Still a developing country. HELL YEAH!
After living in China more than 8 years, negative things are much more than positive. I think traffic is one the negative, but there are worse than traffic. you get used to it, just takes time!!!
dom87:
ones you are dead because of retarded people here you wont think anymore "you get used to it"
traffic is dangerous here and once you get used to it you might pay less attention and just die because you got run over by a bus
TianjinCity:
If you mean I will get used to the way traffic in China is, yes I did get used to it already! My point was trying to understand why there is such a lack of respect for traffic rules, and what do those policemen's role and responsibility are, in the end. I seem to find no utility for those people to be placed in the roads! Like someone was writing previously, it's all to give an impression of something that doesn't work that way: traffic in China has some serious problems and no cops standing on the road or whatsoever will fix this situation.
TianjinCity:
Something is just not right when you see a couple of people holding hands with their small children and crossing the road in a high speed road, putting their children in real danger and with the policeman standing across the road. I saw it at least twice. The policeman then shouted at them for doing such, but what for? They will must likely keep doing it over and over again until one of their sons or daughters dies. Well, that's life.
I'm used to it after 2 months of driving...Well, I drive like a Chinese now, there ya go. 
andy74rc:
At the beginning of my driving in China, I was behaving just like I was used back home: gentleman driving. I found it particularly ineffective and dangerous.
Then I just adapted. Being the gnarliest on the road now makes me the fastest too...
95% of the people is so slow reactive that most of the time I feel like Neo avoiding a bullet in slow motion in Matrix.
Yeah, traffic can be maddening and dangerous here. But. They don't speed unlike drivers back home in the West who think they're F1 performance drivers in their Fords and VWs. I had a Seat Marbella in Spain and with 4 gears gave any Ford or VW a run for their money. Speed is fun!
What they do do here is go real slow, weave in and out of lanes, stop at the most inconvenient spots (for other drivers) like in the middle of an intersection, and take 10 minutes to parallel park as traffic backs up behind them.
As far as pedestrian traffic is concerned, you just gotta learn how to jaywalk and dance between vehicles with the best of them. But never never never dare a car to hit you just because you're a walking flesh-and-blood human being. Vehicles rule and you're dead meat if you believe you have the "right" of way.
In the poker game of conveyance, four tyres beats two legs any day.
The quality of information campaigns is appalling.
Do a knock off of some already worn out Korean pop http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjQyMDIzOTYw.html
