Traffic in China

The traffic here in Beijing is if not dangerous, at least very lively. Having to cross a street becomes a gamble with your life. The light I think is what makes it dangerous, it gives you false hope! Red light doesn't mean you can't try to go through the crossing traffic, it merely seems to indicate that most people will come from the sides the next few moments. Coming from the US where cars would stop 20 feet away afraid of getting too close to a pedestrian, it is a little different here. In China they also have the rule about right turn on red, but it is not exactly a safe implementation here, since no stopping of the vehicle is involved. At the most they will honk the horn and take a right turn, expecting all pedestrians to jump for their lives and give way. Add to that the deadly silent electrical scooters and bicycles that are everywhere, exciting!
 

When the light goes red, most people seem to stop, but after a few seconds people get impatient. Whether you are in a car, on a bike or scooter or just on foot, this is the chance of saving those precious 20 seconds of your life. Just outside the window here I spent a few minutes looking at the traffic, again and again I told myself that that situation is not going to end well. However I never saw anything happening, maybe it is an acquired skill to navigate through traffic? Talking about electric scooters and bicycles, that is huge here.

Whether people are transporting a lot of stuff on their 3 wheeled bicycles with a flatbed on the back, small bicycle taxis or even just regular bicycles, it is used widely. Comparing to usual mopeds and scooters, these versions do not pollute, neither noise nor any exhaust fumes. Beijing is quite flat, they must be getting the most out of these things. But even if you would live in cities with many hills etc, getting a little extra power going up over the hill would be welcome to many people. Braking on the way down the hill would generate power that could go back to the battery, just like they have in some cars nowadays. But they are deadly quiet. Add to the fact that bicycles and scooters don't drive around with lights at night as it supposedly confuses the car drivers!
A car will drive anywhere, and I mean anywhere. There are big lanes for bicycles, and I told Klaus that I thought it was quite good city planning having build most of the roads like this, away from the cars etc. That was until a car was behind me try to get by on the bicycle path. Oh well, I should have seen that coming. Later the same thing happened on the sidewalk, if the car fits, someone will go there!
I think the most impressive thing I have seen was a car coming to a red light, 3 lanes in front of him with cars. He takes the bicycle lane all the way on the right side and drives up to the pedestrians who are now crossing because they have a green light. He honks a few times and turns left crossing together with the pedestrians, until he can turn left again onto the bicycle path in the other direction, where he then parks. Too bad I did not get that on video, because it doesn't sound as cool as it looked