Hi all, I've been living in China for over a year now, though I've been back and forth for almost a decade. I felt the need to rant, hope you enjoy: # The obvious * Never use their indicators, or if they do, only while actually turning the wheel * Wonder all over their lanes or the road seemingly at random * Always on their phones, always using the wechat app. Think using MSN messenger, but while driving. * Don't know when the light will go green or can't realise that it has, despite all traffic lights here all being accompanied by [large LED countdowns](https://www.scienceabc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/LEDTrafficLightCountdownTimerChina.jpg). * Parking in the middle of busy roads to either pick up passengers, or play with their phones, not even pulling off to one side, but right in the middle. Traffic has to flow around both sides of their vehicle to pass * Stopping after minor accidents. In a busy street, or in the middle of a 140/km/h highway, or even in a tunnel under a major lake: if they so much as clip mirrors, they'll stop then and there, take their phones out, call people, maybe take some photos, until police arrive. Holding up all the traffic. * Driving the wrong way. Their lane full of cars because someone did something stupid like park on the road? Into the oncoming lane we go. Oh, there's a car coming towards me, better stop and get back in my lane, but no-one is letting me back in, what do? And now traffic starts backing up in the other lane. Someone in that lane does the same thing, and now the entire road is blocked in both directions for hours. # Traffic design If you've ever managed to assemble a slotcar track, then congratulations, you're better at designing roads than whoever got paid to do it in China, off the sole virtue that you understand that lanes need to match up to work properly. Words can't really describe it so [here is an example of what a typical intersection in China looks like](https://imgoat.com/uploads/8baa56554f/141628.jpg). Sometimes you get lucky and it's not that bad, but intersections like this are certainly not rare. * The orange dot is a bridge pillar, you have to drive around it, left or right, it's up to you: there are no line markings * A car in lane 1a can go to either 1b or 2b, but a car in lane 2a can also go into lane 2b. So there are lots of collusions between two cars trying to both go into the same lane, but neither having priority, or they'll just say, "fuck it", and drive right in the middle of the line that separates 1a and 2a. * 4 lanes in, only 2 lanes out. I guess they're just fans of [mad max](https://www.hooktube.com/watch?v=9yDL0AKUCKo#t=1m37s), and the intersection is their thunderdome. Also, every interesection MUST have lights, but considering how the chinese drivers can't seem to figure out whether it's safe to go or not without a some kind of digital aid, I can't really hold this against the city planners, it seems to be a neccessity. The lights are, off course, completely dumb, so it doesn't matter if it's 3am in the morning, or 3pm at night, it's on a fixed timer, and they aren't synched with each other so that traffic flows properly. # The law and courts Now this is perhaps the biggest one. In the west, when you have an accident, you can go to court, and the judge will find you guilty or not guilty. In China, you're xx% guilty or innocent. So if you're (A) driving along, in your lane, and a car (B) pulls out in front of you last minute without looking, and you slam on the brakes but still hit him, the judge will say something like, B is 90% guilty, but A could have been paying more attention or driving safer, so he carries %10 of the blame (cost). Your car is a shitty VW golf, writeoff value maybe 30k, car B is a late model s-class / 7 series beamer / or ferrari imported from overseas, writeoff value of 400k. So they have to pay 90% * 30k = 27k towards your golf, but you have to pay 10% * 400k = 40k to fix THEIR car. And this is why so many Chinese people drive around in very, very expensive cars, despite having no interest in them whatsoever. Now that's just a car, god help you if you kill anyone - actually, that's not too bad - god help you if you maim someone, because now you'll be responsible for 10% of their estimated loss of productivity and other costs, over the course of their life. This is why shit like [this](https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/disturbing-stories-from-chinas-roads/news-story/9cdb5a1db6620d454a0ca96128f8cd6e) is common. This is also why lots of (especially poor) older people intentionally do shit like ride their bicycles against oncomming traffic at night, or climb into and jump out of gardens that separate the two directions of the road rather than walk at the crossing or waiting for a light. They're trying to get hit because if you do, they'll either get their healthcare paid for (they'll die without it anyway so why not), or if they do die, all their funeral expenses will be paid for + extra to the family. [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9VBdo_8Xk#t=2m05s) a great representation of what I'm talking about. Remember, it doesn't matter if they literally drop out from the sky onto your car, unless you can afford a REALLY good lawyer (or bribe the judge) the judge will still pass a percentage of the blame on to you. And I'm not joking about bribing the judge. And this is the reason for a LOT of the shitty driving: if you've got an expensive car, you can just point and go wherever you want, and the plebs will generally get the fuck out of the way, unless they're suicidal. I was crossing the street one time, and the 3 lane road was unusally quiet. The I saw a brand new rolls royce driving past at basically walking speed in the middle lane, and a craptonne of cars crawling behind, but maintaining at least a two car-length gap. No-one wanted to chance going around in one of the other lanes. # Electric and other not-cars I like bikes, and I plan to own one in China when I can afford the 20k USD motorcycle registration cost (not including the bike, gear, etc). But they're banned mostly banned in Chinese cities because.. safety? They didn't like the look of too many scooters on the road? I'm not sure. But that doesn't matter because they just started using electric scooters. Which I also don't have too many problems with. Sure, they run red lights, drive without looking into oncoming traffic, but meh, they're electric scooters, they don't take up that much room. But then they started using bigger electric vehicles to act as taxis. And then finally, shit like [this](https://image-english.vov.vn/w490/uploaded/ngoctu/2016_02_20/cars_HGDY.jpg) starts popping up. Now they think they're actually cars, and will drive with all the other cars, despite having a top speed of about 40km/h. And take up as much room as such cars. But they're EVEN WORSE than regular chinese drivers because at least that lot actually sat a test to get their licence, and are somewhat worried about losing it, these guys just don't give a shit. Police don't either, unless you're riding a petrol-powered scooter, then they confiscate it on sight. # Theft Chinese are on par with niggers when it comes to stealing anything with 2 wheels. I should know, I've had 3 bikes stolen already. The latest of which was a scooter that was stolen 3 hours ago at the time of writing. # Government policy There's a common pattern when it comes to laws in China. They'll do the most stupid, backwards, knee jerk reactions to things, and then act surprised or not care about the ramifications of said policy. For example, to try and clean up some of the bad habbits (like driving in the emergency lane and blocking emergency vehicles), they'll introduce programs where if you catch someone doing something illegal, they'll pay you for it. Sounds great on the surface, but what actually happens? You get a bunch of fucktards who will do shit like park in front of you or swerve around; and force you to go around them; and they'll have their cameras ready to record you doing it. Now you get to go through China's legal system (ha) to prove yourself innocent, and get them to reinstate your points and remove the fines. Genius. And then some commie official will take a car instead of helicopter one day, and realise, "oh shit, there are lots of people parking in the middle of the road, and it's causing problems for me!" And then next thing you know, no-one is allowed to park, drop off, or pick up passengers anywhere in the city at any time, day or night... good luck getting a taxi home from the bar!