Raoul's China Saloon (V5.0) Beta
The Bar Room => The Champagne Cabana => Topic started by: Yokie Kuma on December 10, 2009, 10:01:49 PM
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It is unfathomable to me how bad the Chinese Shenzhen drivers are ....
Every every every day on my to and from work, I see half a dozen instances where I want to open someone's car door, drag them out, and beat them for their
1) Stupidity
2) Carelessness
3) Arrogance
4) Self-centered-ness
5) Selfishness
6) Lack of caring about anyone else
7) Not understanding of cause and effect
8) Thinking they always always have the right of way
9) ugh ugh ugh .... too many to list
I have been to other cities in China .... Shenzhen has the absolute worse .... I have to sleep while in a taxi or driving just so I do not lose years off my life from the magnitude of aggravation I feel ....
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I have to sleep while ... driving just so I do not lose years off my life from the magnitude of aggravation I feel ....
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doesn't sound like you are making the roads of Shenzhen any safer yourself, glad I don't live there. Say, this weekend when I'm there, could you make a point of being awake when driving? ahahahahah ahahahahah ahahahahah
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Worse than the rest of China???? aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
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Can't possibly be as bad as Jinan!
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I really have to say, if you're basing your entire China road experiences on your time in Shenzhen, you're doing EXTREMELY well! Have you even BEEN to any backwaters? O.M.G. I now live in Dongguan and it's HEAVEN on the roads here (to the point that it still amazes me that foreigners are even brave enough to drive here!).
I've travelled to the Himalyas, and lived on the Longman (?) plataeu of eastern Gansu- believe me, it's a very hair raising adventure driving up these ONE LANE "freeways" up the mountains with nothing but eternal drops on either side of you. Often you're waiting for oncoming traffic to clear- to the point that you just get out of the car, set up a chess board on the side of the road and settle in for an hour or so while the watermelon lady comes round selling slices!
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aoaoaoaoao
Yup, they're mad here. I go with a smaller town - worse drivers theory.
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to the point that you just get out of the car, set up a chess board on the side of the road and settle in for an hour or so while the watermelon lady comes round selling slices!
Well that sounds like a pretty good way to travel to work to me.
Yup, they're mad here. I go with a smaller town - worse drivers theory.
Maybe, but probably a lot less cars than Shenzhen, I'm with Yokie kuma on this one Shenzhen has some of the most ignorant arrogant w**kers on the roads.
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I won't speak to the crazy-faire practices of the boonies, but in the cities it is almost a law of physics that the more expensive the car, the worse the driver.
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Then they come to Australia and buy a car. aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
The fun is in watching the parking antics, particularly when they drive the big 4 wheel drives. kkkkkkkkkk
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I back Yokie on this one...Shenzhen has the worst drivers in China.
Though I enjoyed pissing off the people who would honk at me while they were driving on the sidewalk--I usually stopped and refused to move for the next 5 minutes. I even yelled at one loud enough to make him back up.
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I do stuff like that in Jinan, but most times I get the impression they don't understand why the laowai is yelling abusing them. "Shit, I was only driving through a red light. Why would he yell at me?"
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Jeez, I can't imagine any city having worse drivers than the ones I've lived in or visited. Selling cars in China is like giving flame throwers to a gang of 9-year-old boys. oooooooooo asasasasas
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It's not how dangerous the SZ drivers are that annoys the bejesus out of me ... it's how rude they are.... the magnitude of their in-consideration is amazing ..... shocking actually how such a large group of people can be so ????? (I have no word for what I want to say but it is a combination of rude and uncaring and arrogant and self-absorbed and ....)
And, here's the kicker ... SZ, 15 years ago had about 50,000 people and now has 12+ million. So most if not all are immigrants. And most immigrants who came here and drive and relatively educated and experienced .... and yet they behave like savages when they get in a car.
Shocking.
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Shenzhen really has 12 million people?
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Yup.
Other cities are even bigger...I think Chongqing may be over 20 million now.
And not one of them can drive a car worth a damn. asasasasas
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12 million is a low estimate for Shenzhen. A couple years ago the official estimate of "residents" was 11 million (and I think that only included the Special Economic Zone). The real number is probably closer to 15 million.
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In Chinese cities, millions of crazy drivers ignoring all civilized road rules, and yet the traffic flows. mmmmmmmmmm
Unlike the USA, where a cop pulled off in the emergency lane with his lights on is enough of a distraction to bring an interstate highway to a crawl, in BOTH directions. llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll
In the USA, traffic (mostly) stops for crosswalks, but there are still plenty of pedestrians hit in and out of crosswalks. In China, I ignore the crosswalks and play live action frogger across 6 lane roads. I've found taking one lane at a time seems to work pretty well, but having a bus rip past 10 cm from my nose can be a bit unnerving at times.
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where ever in china, what ever the comparison to the western countries, it is always a matter of population competition. if you have the 'space', or the 'food', or 'job' then i can't have it. there simply is not enough for everyone. if you have been trained, from babyhood, to ignore the other guy, as he wants only to compete and take what might be yours, then you don't see the other folks as individuals worthy of consideration but only as people (objects) in your space or path. makes no difference the location, if they speak chinese, they suffer this malady.
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And yet the Chinese can make an intersection between two 4 lane roads work without lights or traffic signs. It's every man for himself, but in the most oddly cooperative way.
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Anarchy works for some better than others.
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Well, if you are sitting in a Taxi and think chinese drivers are bad - then start driving yourself. I do this since March 2009 in Shanghai - it is aaaaaaaaaa
The are driving nuts, and at night they all switch on the far light - so you got blided all the time. I do not know how driving is in SZ, but due to the stupid drivers in Shanghai and all the road under construction, I can not believe it is worse than Shanghai.
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We've, in general, grown up in a car-based society. Some of us (or our children) may even have been conceived in the back of a car! So we learned to drive, not only formally, but by osmosis, by being in cars, for a fair chunk of our lives. The majority of Chinese drivers have not had this 'cultural' understanding of the road, road rules and traffic.
With another 13 million cars on the road this year, this puts enormous pressure on the traffic system. With 13 million more new drivers on the road, with very little experience, many of whom 'guanxi'd' their way into getting a licence ... then there has to be a problem.
Worst place I came across in China for drivers was in far western T't. Maximum of half a dozen trucks, plus 5 taxis existed in the small town. For the drivers it was literally accelerate when they saw pedestrians! Forget trying to avoid them - it was aim straight at them. Scary as. aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao aoaoaoaoao
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where ever in china, what ever the comparison to the western countries, it is always a matter of population competition. if you have the 'space', or the 'food', or 'job' then i can't have it. there simply is not enough for everyone. if you have been trained, from babyhood, to ignore the other guy, as he wants only to compete and take what might be yours, then you don't see the other folks as individuals worthy of consideration but only as people (objects) in your space or path. makes no difference the location, if they speak chinese, they suffer this malady.
This probably sums up the situation as well as any ... drive like nothing else exists ... funny, but it also applies to elevators, buses, stores, etc etc etc ....
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I vaguely recall reading an article early this syear about an old man in Shanghai who got so fed up with drivers running through red lights that he started stoning them. He would sit at the corner and throw rocks whenever a car ran a red. Apparently other retired people in his neighborhood joined him, before the police came to, ahem, restore harmony to the situation. Anyone else see this? I would love to find a link to it
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I have driven many times in Changchun. I've even had taxi drivers allow me to drive. They ar shocked that I know how even though I show them my driver's lisence. Ridden a few bikes too, but then, I have a lawn mower back home with a bigger engine. Changchun is only 7.5 million so it's relatively small ahahahahah
Taxi drivers here are fairly tame. One driver asked me to slow down as I was doing 80KPH on the city main road. They'd normally only do 50 or 60
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We've, in general, grown up in a car-based society. Some of us (or our children) may even have been conceived in the back of a car! So we learned to drive, not only formally, but by osmosis, by being in cars, for a fair chunk of our lives. The majority of Chinese drivers have not had this 'cultural' understanding of the road, road rules and traffic.
No excuses. the arrogance displayed when driving is inexcusable. INEXCUSABLE!!!
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Ages ago, Ruth had a great description of the traffic here, so I have no idea where to find it again. Something along the lines of water flowing around rocks in a river. Ruth - can you remember it?
Me - traffic here has made me in believer in parallel universes. ahahahahah
I think some of the problem is that the majority of car owners are relatively wealthy and figure that they are 'special'.
I'm just so grateful that 'road rage' doesn't occur here with the same level of frequency that it does in many western countries. Road rage to me, is real the arrogance. I've only seen one instance of it here, where the driver of a car was miffed at the driver of the uni bus, so passed us, crossed to our lane and then stopped in front of us. He shouted at the driver, who sat quietly. The car driver, getting no response, then went to the boot of his car to grab a baseball bat, and the two women in his car then grabbed his arms and pushed him back into the car, and all of us went on our way.
In other countries it may not have ended so peacefully. The rate of "aggressive driving" incidents--defined as events in which an angry or impatient driver tries to kill or injure another driver after a traffic dispute--has risen by 51 percent since 1990. In those cases studied, 37 percent of offenders used firearms against other drivers, an additional 28 percent used other weapons, and 35 percent used their cars.
"Aggressive driving is now the most common way of driving," says Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who codirects the Media and Injury Prevention Program at the University of Southern California. "It's not just a few crazies--it's a subculture of driving."
How much actual 'road rage' have you seen among the 'exciting' aoaoaoaoao drivers here??
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I have seen very very little. A couple of drivers yelling. I did see one man from a big car get out of his car and punch a taxi driver in the face through the open window. That is in 5 years here.
You could see that in 1 day in the west.
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I think it was two years ago in Shenzhen, a local official went into a rage AFTER he back into a woman walking behind his car in a parking lot--it was all caught on tape and was all over the news. She banged on his window after he didn't stop or take any notice of hitting her. So, of course, he severely beat her in front of a crowd (including his school-aged kid) because she was obviously in the wrong. Fortunately, he was fired from his job.
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... I've only seen one instance of it here, where the driver of a car was miffed at the driver of the uni bus, so passed us, crossed to our lane and then stopped in front of us. He shouted at the driver, who sat quietly. The car driver, getting no response, then went to the boot of his car to grab a baseball bat, and the two women in his car then grabbed his arms and pushed him back into the car, and all of us went on our way.
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How much actual 'road rage' have you seen among the 'exciting' aoaoaoaoao drivers here??
Aluminum or wooden?
Seriously, baseball bats are as rare in China as are instances of "road rage".
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Child size baseball bat, couldn't see what it was made of. Pretty colours, so not too uncommon. ahahahahah ahahahahah
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Perhaps we have found a causal link here.
In the USA, baseball bats and road rage are both common. No one would think it unusual if a baseball bat was involved in a road rage incident.
In China, baseball bats and road rage are both rare. Now we have a report of a baseball bat being used in a road rage incident.
Hmmmmnnnnn....
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So there needs to be "road rage" safe baseball bats .... maybe with breakaway handles if they hit something larger than a baseball?
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37 percent of offenders used firearms against other drivers.
Fingers crossed that the Chinese Gov't never allows its citizens the right to have guns.
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Had another bus incident today. The uni bus was taking us to the new campus and the driver decided that the road was too busy, so would take the bike/taxi road. He pulled into it without looking properly and cut straight in front of a public bus, which of course had to stop quickly, making passengers fall over.
Both drivers got out, pulled out their cigarettes, and chatted amicably for about 10-15 minutes. Finally our driver handed over 100Y and away we went. Peaceful solution to a situation that, in other places, could have been a nasty confrontation.
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On my last trip to HK, the bus manged to damage a van in south Dongguan. Lots of yelling in Cantonese. Police arrived and did police style things (damage photos, tape measures, etc) and there was much more yelling in Cantonese.
No hints of violence, but quite a long delay.
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I was one day sitting in a Taxi in Shanghai. The driver used his signal horn permanently and the driver in front of us was obviously unhappy about it. He came to the Taxi, screamed at the driver and hit him with the fist in the face. Then he went to his car and drove away. Also the Taxi driver continued driving as if nothing happended. And I was sitting in the back thinking aoaoaoaoao llllllllll kkkkkkkkkk bfbfbfbfbf