Chinese population reduction control

first video
are those poeple blind?
and then that guy that just runsover that other guy standing there.
what is this? is it the stress from china people working for nothing trying to stay alive?

damm..

 

One wonders if there is a driving test to obtain a licence?

 

I agree. It was better before I put the headphones on and got the Benny Hill soundtrack trying to make a joke of the whole thing. I just had to stop watching after awhile.

I've seen things like this in other youtube videos that take place in U.S. or England, it doesn't surprise me we don't have a lock on idiocy or inattention.

In the second video, it's good to see the guy walking around afterwards, but either he was dazed or nobody really knows what to do with a crashed bike in the street, not like it's a novel thing according to the first video.

 

This video does nothing to help the stereotype of Asian drivers.

I don't know what is more scary, riding bicycle or scooter in China or driving a Chinese-built car!

 

Confucius say: He who stands in street gets run over.

It appears that the intersection is not controlled. If there were stop signs or traffic lights (and enforcement) the situation would change.

From our point of view driving in Asia is worse. There are more people with smaller/lighter vehicles & less driver training. When you are making 1 or 2 rupee per hour how much can you afford?

 

It appears that the truck driver in the second video ran the red light. If I had been the kung fu cycle driver I would have been tempted to try my skills on the truck driver. Didn't notice any exchanging of info after the accident either, WTH! are you just SOL if it's not your fault over there?

 

I was curious after reading the thread title. However, youtube is not accessble with 'special arrangements' in my country of residence.

Responding to some comments here, there is a road test before a driving license is issued. People have told me that it is not an easy test. The normal procedure after any traffic collision (even very minor) is for all vehicles involved to stay at the scene until a police officer arrives and does stuff. This is not to say that hit and runs are impossible, or even unlikely.

There is a website somewhere (perhaps United Nations?) that show color coded maps for countries in traffic accidents (or fatalities) per vehicle count or distance driven. China indeed was colored "high" on those maps.

My impression is that drivers here follow rules when all other options have been exhausted. Yet it is perhaps not as bad as that sounds. There is a sort of logic to the driving, although it takes some time to recognize it.

Indeed I cross streets or bicycle with high levels of vigilance, and I do not bicycle at night.

 

Please remember that dense passenger car traffic is still a fairly recent phenomena in China. Most adults over ~30 grew up without much of it, so car safety was not part of the childhood 'common sense' drilled into their heads by their parents. While most North Americans have been driving for 4 or 5 generations, most Chinese are still in their first driving generation.

But compared to the Vietnamese, the Chinese are already seasoned veteran drivers.

 

According to my colleagues in Shanghai, yes there is a driving test, but they also add that in a lot of cases, the person doing the test is not necessarily the person whose name is on the final licence.

However, based on the skills that these exact same colleagues have demonstrated to me when going out to lunch, it must be a relatively easy test to do. After just one trip with one driver, I would never get into another car if he was driving. Mind you, Shanghai seem to have very different approaches to driving when compared to Beijing. In Beijing, most drivers appear to obey the rules, and drive safely, but in Shanghai, it is very different.

One of the common scenarios is turning right through a red light - nearly everybody does it, but I do not think that it is a valid rule - they all stop if there are police on the corner.

Unfortunately, as I have said above, running a red is common, especially when making a right turn. As for courtesy, the mainland Chinese seem to follow a common Asian road rule - please you may go first, but after me. I have encountered this same courtesy in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and India.

Speaking of the last, at least I still keep my eyes open when being driven around Shanghai. I definitely close them in India. On my last visit there, the driver did not stop at a single red light between the airport and the hotel, and in most cases, did not even slow down, just lent on his horn as he approached the intersection.