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Q: Why Chinese people buy cars they cannot drive?
For example, i see many 400+ brake horsepower supercars driven at 50kmh at best. Not even accelerating a tad fast at crosslights. Not to mention driving a corner. I usually overtake loads of supercars as soon as we get to the first corner after a straight stretch were they can win me over my Dongfeng Shuai Off 1.6 litre van.
In 4 years of driving in China I had only once the pleasure to play a bit with a guy driving a BMW 530 relatively properly around corners, but still I could keep up with him despite him having as much as double as my HP and a better planted car.
There's a guy driving an orange Lambo Gallardo, often passing along the Dadao were my office is. I can hear him coming from far. He accelerates than takes 3 seconds for changing gear each time. WTF? what is he doing instead of keep the foot on the pedal and just slightly pulling on the paddle? Accelerate, release the foot, pull (with brute force, there's no gentleness in the hoofs of the people here), release it, press back the throttle...... well...... it might take at least 3 seconds.
I understand the showing off thing, but......
they couldnt even drive a smart. Anyways they tend to buy the biggest cars. Its like home the ones with the biggest cars cant drive them at all
Probably the big difference is we have all driven from teenagers. We had toy cars, carts experience with things that have wheels from early ages.. I remember the first time behind the wheel. I was 3 years old sitting on my grandfathers knee and he let me steer the tractor. The first time I drove myself was 7 years old, my cousin and I drove a Model A field car into town, with our parents permission.
From a teenager on, I hopped up everything I owned, we're into that. I also totalled most of my cars, but cars weren't as expensive back then. Now, I've got over 30K in a 38 Chev and not finished. China is not a place I would want to drive fast in, too many idiots and unexpected things.
nicholasba:
they should adopt Germany's autobahn speed limit, and within 5 yrs China population will be the half...that would be THEＳＨＯＷ＞．．．
Scandinavian:
@nicolasb: Don't worry about the speed limits. China has an insanely high number of road-fatalities per year. Measured in deaths/100000 inhabitants the number is about 4 times that of EU countries. If you then factor in the fact that it is, compared to EU relatively few people that own a car (there are 100s of millions that are far from being able to afford a car) and the fact that the average Chinese car owner drives less KM per year, then the numbers are just mindboggeling.
This morning I got a lift to a place 5 km down the street. It is a 5 minute drive. In the car, a woman behind the wheel, her 5 year old kid. The woman had a seatbelt on, the kid did not. During this short trip, she did a couple of hazardous overtakings, one really good one in a junction on the right side of a car indicating to the right, went the wrong way around a roundabout, drove 500 meters against traffic on a one way street to turn left to continue in the wrong direction on another one way street. Didn't break for speedbumps. Didn't once indicate. Didn't keep inside the 40km/h speed limits of our hood. Didn't once look out of the side windows at junctions.
TedDBayer:
My GF said I don't know how to drive a scooter, I said I drive motorcycles all my life, she said this is not the same. I always harped at her for making left turns across streets and not looking over her shoulder. I guess the Force is strong in the Chinese.
So did I. But, I still wonder how's possible than, in so many millions now owning a car, NOBODY, even the ones who call themselves passionate about cars, have the spirit and curiosity to understand what a car can do, and what its limit can be.
When we were kids, and growing, we've always wanted to push it further and further didnt' we?
Here? I got myself to conclude that there must be some slower mental processes involved.....
Only they will know and for us it is hard to find out. You would have to ask them or find some interview with them revealing all of their secrets..
Clinically insane coupled with tunnel vision - is my diagnosis...
I have a neighbor that has a small fleet of Lambo's, he does know how to go fast, just not how to get up to speed fast. It even has DSG so it should be pretty much just a matter of flooring it. Anyway. The mystery gets even bigger when less than an hours drive away from here is a full blown Formula 1 track that has organized "learn to drive your supercar" days.
It must be making up for a lack of balls, a thing the small children on the street next to the school, that he races past every day, needs to have.
andy74rc:
I'd say it a lack of sensitivity. On anything. See how they press the buttons on:
- elevators
- aircons
- anything else having buttons.
Not limited to fingers of course... fingers... sorry, hoofs.
I do insist anyway, on the limited speed of rational thinking elaboration. There's a joke about why most of the accidents, even on highways, are rear-ending collisions: when the driver of the following vehicle sees the breaking lights lighting up and brutal emergency braking of the one in front, the first istinctive reaction is not to slam the brakes too. Is just a 2 seconds "Aaaaahhh??????????" ....... Splat.Scandinavian:
I think they lack patience, intelligence, compassion, basic manners and modesty.
Scandinavian:
In the heaven called Germany, one of the things that can loose you your license is "not have speed appropriate distance to the car ahead"
If you try fancy new cars with radar controlled cruise control I think you'd ne surprised to see how much distance the engineers, who knows in detail how fast the brakes can stop the car, thinks you need.
Do you really want people unwinding an A6 downtown? I imagine they open them up on the expressways and highways, but auto antics in town make no sense. Bikes, ebikes, pedestrians everywhere going every which way. No, I think any who do want a thrill find it elsewhere.
I once saw a young lad in a Carrera skid sideways into an intersection on a red light. Fortunately he found a way to stop and no one got in his way. He probably learned a lesson. Not in town.
I'm still waiting to see a Mustang anywhere. Anyone seen a Ford Mustang? WTF why no Mustangs, Cudas or Camaros?
Scandinavian:
There is a new Camero here in Zhuhai. (think it is a 2012) The reason you don't see them is that they are not built in China so they are subject to import tax. Also, people spending that kind of money wants a big sedan/limousine style car so they can feel all big and mighty like the leaders.
I more miss the micro cars that you see all over Europe. There is a couple of copies of these but underneath they use shit technology so they are unsafe for their occupants and the planet.
bill8899:
Camaro, Camaro! Thanks for the info. I guess that makes sense.
Scandinavian:
Camero. Prices start from 455000RMB http://www.chevrolet.com.cn/brandsite/car_camaro.html
andy74rc:
Not too bad. Starts at 43K Euro in Italy.
Just need to forget the gasoline at 1,75 Euro/L and the road tax at 2850 Euro/year.
teggsnose:
Camaros..Dodge Rams...Ford Raptors all making me feel very envious here in Mianyang !
About unwinding downtown, generally not, but along Dongguan Dadao, which is a 4 lane road, there's now a quite wide chicane due to the Metro construction going on. And there's no cameras in that 1km before/after the chicane. It's my way home, so usually I enjoy everyday going through it doing 5th to 4th flat out at 110-120kmh. Even with a van like mine it's an easy task and lot of fun.
Leaving from the crosslight 1km before that chicane with plenty of supercars taking off, when the real fun should begin, they slow down to nothing. Drive it through for god's sake!
Couple of Camaros roaming through Dongguan.
Scandinavian:
Speed cameras in China are typically "average speed cameras" so it will take a snap at you at one point, and then some kms down the road another snap. If the time you spent moving between the two cameras means that you have averaged a speed higher than the permitted speed you can get a ticket.
I've said this before, low testosterone, it causes spacial impairment. This explains so much like why they walk into you.
Scandinavian:
a dude wearing a t-shirt with Donald Duck and the text "Watch out" walked into me yesterday
Hulk:
The majority of Chinese men are deficient in testosterone. They can take lots of HGH and test and it won't show up in the olympics drug testing because it seems like they're just normal.
The real reason that people buy cars they cannot drive is because the CCP wants to gain face by being a "modern" country and yet do not want to spend the money or acquire the correct skills for setting up and running driving schools. If they set up driving tests to UK standards very very few would pass and so the CCP looses face. They would much rather have a bunch of idiots on the road with no spatial awareness, no lane control, no recognition of red lights( although that is improving slightly), no idea what pavements/sidewalks are for and no idea of a whole load of other issues apart from where is the horn. Added to that if we only have a thousand or so Chinese each year capable of passing a real driving test then the car industry would collapse, more lost face. So the CCP want people who cannot drive on the roads irrespective of the resulting chaos.
Scandinavian:
I think you are underestimating people here. It is not that they cannot be trained to drive properly, it is just that no one asks them to.
dom87:
I try to train some people here (not in driving) and i facepalm myself the whole day.
so i guess some fundamental skills are somewhat missing e.g. basic logics we grow up with.
You need training to understand that the honk wont move the tree away that has fallen on the street an block it now? 
