some thoughts about beijing traffic

So everybody's heard about how bad the traffic is here. Of course, living in the Bay Area and Washington, DC, I've been stuck in worse traffic. But I think what's striking is how fast it's gotten bad, as more and more Chinese people get rich enough to buy cars. Even three years ago we would hop in a cab and haul ass across the entire city. Now the roads seem full of cars almost 24 hours a day.

However, I am convinced that the vast majority of traffic is caused by simple bad driving. I mean, Beijing really doesn't have all that many cars, only 129 private vehicles per 1000 people, compared to 455 for the Bay Area and 338 in the New York City metro area. (I actually went out and calcuated these numbers from census data. That's how much I care about this blog.)

The problem is that Beijing drivers, especially the ones driving private cars, haven't been driving for very long. For example, I don't know why, but there is this obsession with backing into regular spots. I guess it makes it easier to pull out, but I think driving straight in and then backing out is easier overall. There's also a lot of parallel parking going on, because not many parking lots have been built and so a lot of parking is on the street (or in the bike lanes). Remember how hard it was to do this stuff when you were 16? Basically you've got a city full of 16-year-olds. Luckily in China cheap labor abounds, so there is an army of parking attendants whose main job is to shout at people about to back into somebody else's Audi.

And this all translates onto the road itself. People driving too slow, cutting people off, deciding to turn right from the left-turn lane, etc. Throw in cabbies and bus drivers, all of whom know how to drive and yet drive like maniacs, and you've got a dangerous mix.

At the same time, pedestrians just don't quite help either. Instead of waiting for the light to change, they all continously edge into the street, often forcing three lanes of traffic down to one. Just so, what? you can save five seconds when the light actually does turn green? And risk getting run over by a cement truck because there is an absolute universal disregard to stopping for a right turn on a red light? Bikers are worse, because bikes are so big. It's not unusual to see some old lady just kind of hanging out in the middle of an intersection, blocking several buses.

Durrell said that he's surprised at how many accidents he doesn't see, and I have to agree.