Driving in China can be a pain, for reasons I hardly need to list here (but will, since Web Logs were created for just this sort of venting) – traffic, severe traffic, traffic caused by fights between traffic cops, traffic regulations, traffic accidents…. Luckily, China’s Ministry of Public Security has an extensive test to prepare this country’s would-be drivers for the stress, frustration, and Weltschmerz of the road…

Behold the ministry’s new driving test questions, which went into place last year, as brought to us by the website Chinese Driving Test. Some samples:

Before we continue, a quick note that this is a real test with questions that are very much not a joke. As the creator of the website emailed us in reply to a question, “Sadly [this site] is not supposed to be hilarious or satirical, but perhaps it should be.”

Of course, according to some, the test apparently isn’t this easy and stupid. As NPR’s Frank Langfitt wrote in January (about flunking the test three times): “The night before my test, I decided to take a practice one online. There were 100 questions drawn from a pool of nearly 1,000. You had to get 90 correct to pass. I got a 65 and started to panic.”

The site Chinese Driving Test includes 973 sample questions, which might make for fine study material. For more information:

The Chinese driver’s test comprises 100 questions randomly selected from a pool of over 900. You will be given forty-five minutes in which to answer all the questions and you need to score 90 or more to pass.

The first forty questions require you to give a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer to a given statement. The remaining sixty questions are multiple choice with four options.

Note that new motor vehicle driver training teaching and examination syllabus came into force on January 1, 2013. It makes for painfully dull reading but if you really want to see it, here it is. (If the syllabus isn’t boring enough for you then head over to the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Road Traffic Safety.)

(H/T Hannah L.)

The above is by photojournalist Sean Gallagher, who found himself stuck in traffic earlier today just outside of Beijing. As he writes on his Instagram:

Stuck in a series of epic traffic jams south of Beijing. Tired of waiting, drivers and passengers go for strolls along the highway. Today is the first day of China’s national holiday. Most people take the opportunity to escape the major cities and return to their hometowns for a few days. In China, that means that millions are on the move.

Gallagher’s trekking toward Shandong province. For his sake, we hope the roads are better outside the metropolis.

Knowing what we know about Golden Week traffic though, we wouldn’t count on it. Stay off the freeways, folks. Your blood pressure will thank you later.

Sunday was World Car Free Day, striving to remind people of the earth that cars pollute and are actually less necessary than you think (unless you live in Suburbia, USA). More than 150 Chinese cities observed World Car Free Day, according to Xinhua, though it was apparent that some cities observed it much better than others.

In Lanzhou, it looks like people made a concerted effort to not use cars, and look at the results. In Ningbo, there was a bike event sponsored by Giant to promote a low-carbon lifestyle. In fact, several bike and electric bike companies got in the act to promote their products.

In Beijing, the municipal traffic department announced on Sina Weibo on Sunday at 8:21 am that the traffic network was gravely congested, and that the average speed of cars was 22.7 kilometers per hour. Furthermore, everything within Fourth Ring Road was fucked (my word), while the roads between Fourth and Fifth Ring were merely mildly fucked.

Here:

Lovely, isn’t it? Who wants to buy a car? yay!

Some more pictures from ground level, via Xinhua:

(H/T Alicia)

When the first paragraph in a story about traffic references helicopters and motorbikes, you pretty much know what you’re in for. China Daily:

Beijing’s traffic authorities will use motorbikes and helicopters as part of a series of measures to tackle heavy traffic in September.

The helicopters will be used to gather detailed information, says the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau. Information such as: Third Ring Road is jammed, Second Ring Road is jammed, every road around Zhongguancun is jammed, oh, and the Airport Express will be closed for two hours because of a visiting dignitary. Have a nice day!

More traffic police will be dispatched to maintain traffic order, according to a statement on the bureau’s website on Thursday.

To stop fights, or to get into them, presumably.

Based on previous years’ traffic statistics, the Beijing Commission of Transport said that September will witness some of the heaviest traffic congestion due to the new school semester, as well as the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays.

Everything. That’s what you fuck. It all.

Road congestion is expected reach serious levels on nine days this month, with the traffic congestion index expected to reach above 8.5. The index measures congestion on a scale of 0 (no congestion) to 10 (heavily congested).

The days surrounding the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holiday, Sept 17, Sept 18, Sept 22 and Sept 29, are expected to hit above 9.0, the statement said.

Last year, on Sept 25, five days before the National Day holiday, the city witnessed a peak road congestion index of 9.8 during late afternoon.

Mid-Autumn Day, which falls on Sept 19 this year, has become a popular holiday for people to send gifts, so many cars from outside Beijing are expected to come to the capital.

According to the commission’s latest plan to deal with heavy traffic this month, government departments have been told not to hold large meetings or activities.

Good luck, drivers. Your commute depends, in part, on whether government departments hold large meetings or activities.

The story goes on for a while, with quotes such as this:

“Every day I drive my car to work and pass the West Railway Station area, I get caught for at least a half an hour,” Zhang said.

Yeah. Don’t drive, people. If the powers that be force you to give a fuck about driving, throw it back at their faces. Otherwise, stuck in a gridlock with fifty cars between you and the intersection’s red light, you’ll want to punch yourself in the teeth for being so stupid.

p.s. If you have to drive, use this traffic map.

Beijing prepares for September gridlock (China Daily)

Citing “extremely bad influences,” the police bureau in Tangshan, Hebei province has fired two traffic wardens who were caught on video fighting in an intersection, completely neglecting their job.

“Traffic cops!” one of the people behind the camera marvels, as if traffic couldn’t sort itself out.

After a little while, a third cop strides over to break things up. And then the honking begins, and we realize that these two have been holding up traffic all this time. Don’t you love all the ways jams can happen here?

The above picture comes via George Ding of the Beijinger (you might remember him as our first Three Shots guest). He writes:

If the cars going west hadn’t initially blocked the intersection, this wouldn’t have happened. Had the cars going north and south not rushed in and just waited one cycle for the intersection to clear, this wouldn’t have happened. Had the cars going east not rushed in to be blocked by the cars going north, this wouldn’t have happened. And had the cars going west not rushed in only to be blocked by the cars going south, well, you get the idea.

Yeah, we get the idea all too well. Fucking traffic, man. Fucking fuck.

CORRECTION, 7/10, 4:01 pm: I was just made aware that, contrary to the Beijinger’s photo citation –

– this picture was not taken by George Ding, but was pulled from Google, and may or may not even be from China. Sorry, folks.

We love that term, wish we would’ve thought of it ourselves. Zombie commuters. Commuters because they’re trying to get somewhere. Zombies because you’d have to be brain-dead to drive into traffic in Beijing. As SCMP puts it: “It’s like a scene out of American television show The Walking Dead, said a microblogger on Sina Weibo, after photos of apocalyptic, zombie-infested Beijing began spreading online on Monday morning.”

Worse or better than this? It doesn’t matter. We now have a term, forevermore, for these soul-crushing gridlocks in which people decide, en masse, to abandon their vehicles and walk.

TOP TRAFFIC POSTS

The Mother Of All Traffic Jams (Warning: It’s Horrifying) May 21

The Basics Of Driving In China: A Diagram May 22

Bus Driver Hit With Unidentified Debris, Continues Doing Job June 4

Bicyclists Strewn Everywhere: One Car Kills Five June 26

This Is Why You Should Never Play Real-Life Frogger June 27

This Woman Is The Luckiest And Worst Driver Alive August 27

In response to public outcry over a January 1 regulation stipulating that drivers must stop on yellow lights, traffic management authorities have promised to upgrade road signals, according to China Daily: “The pace of signal upgrading will quicken, the traffic management bureau under the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on Thursday.”

But it’s already too late, if you choose to believe the maker of the embedded video. Taken yesterday in Beijing at Fangzhuang South Road, Youku user 林宝塔夫 claims this five-car fender bender was the result of a driver slamming on the brakes after the green light changed.

To think, it was just yesterday that I wrote, “Let’s see how long until the first rear-end accident caused by a car braking suddenly at yellow.”

We likely haven’t seen the end of these rear-end collisions. China Daily again:

Jiang Mingsheng, a taxi driver in Beijing who has 33 years’ driving experience, said the regulations have put him under pressure when he drives past road crossings, as many traffic lights in Beijing do not have countdown timers.

“I ran a yellow light the other day. I was meters away from the stop line and the lights suddenly turned yellow. I was almost in the middle of the road after I put my brakes on and stopped the vehicle,” he said.

“I don’t think anyone would be able to stop the vehicle in that case,” he said.

State media introduced this new law by airing a compilation of accidents caused by drivers speeding through intersections. How soon before we’re treated to a compilation of accidents caused by braking?

Red means stop, green means go, yellow means very, very slow… unless you’re in China in 2013, in which case, red means stop, green means go, yellow means stop… unless you’re driving an Audi, in which case, green means go, yellow means go, red means whatever you feel like.

I think that’s how the nursery rhyme goes.

On January 1, China enacted a new traffic regulation that changes the meaning of yellow lights: from “caution” to “stop.” Drivers must now brake when they see yellow as long as they’re not yet in the intersection — ignoring basic physics which dictate deceleration is a change in speed over time.

The rule was a reaction to spates of traffic accidents, but drivers have sensibly asked whether there isn’t a better way. Introducing a stupid nursery rhyme seems to be as sensible, if not more so.

And will the law really be enforced? According to Danwei:

Yet when a journalist from Orient Today (东方今报) from Henan province yesterday went to observe the traffic in Zhengzhou (郑州), capital of Henan province, he found the usual black Audis and other cars jumping yellow lights, some drivers talking on their mobile phones while they did so, as if there were no new “most severe traffic law in history” in force in China.

Indeed, it seems not just “black Audis” — i.e. cars probably driven by government officials — but other cars — every car? — were ignoring the new regulation. Something might be wrong with the regulation, then?

Offbeat China (above image via them) has translated some other funny netizen responses:

Netizen 俞白眉, however, proposed an entirely different model: “There are still problems with 3-color traffic lights. There should be 7 colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and velvet. Each color signifies a different speed limit. Red is 0 mph, orange is 5 mph, yellow is 20 mph, green is normal speed, and so on so forth…velvet would be low-altitude flying. If 7-color traffic light still doesn’t work, we can try 256 colors.” Opposite to 俞白眉’s proposal, some others went minimalist. Netizen 光头王凯 suggested: “Given the logic of the new rule, neither yellow lights nor red lights have a reason to stay. One green light alone can do the job – green light on, pass; green light off, stop.”

Let’s see how long until the first rear-end accident caused by a car braking suddenly at yellow.

China recently increased the penalty for running yellow lights: offenders stand to lose fully half of their 12 “points” (if a driver loses all 12, he/she has to go through training and retake a driver’s exam) and must pay up to a 200 yuan fine.

Some have interpreted the new regulation, which into effect yesterday, to mean that drivers must brake abruptly upon seeing yellow, which seems like a dumb reading of the law. No cop would possibly ticket someone for going through a yellow… right?

Via SCMP:

In an unusual move, China’s state Xinhua News Agency echoed drivers’ oppositions on Tuesday. A post on its official Weibo reads: “This new rule is against Newton’s first law of motion.”

In a Weibo post titled “Xinhua Micro Comment”, Xinhua  lashed out at the new rule, quoting complaints from netizens.

“Netizens have complained the difficulty of stopping at the yellow lights. If all cars slow down as much as they can before the lights, it will create more traffic for the already congested roads.”

Then the author went on to criticise the new rule , “It’s against Newton’s law and we seriously demand a revision.”

Indeed, as it is currently worded, the law says that only drivers who have passed the “stop line” are allowed to proceed through the intersection when the light turns yellow. Otherwise, they must “stop.” Yellow lights, then, may well effectively now be red.

Of course, if you don’t even slow down at a yellow, the CCTV-13 newscast embedded here would like to show you what can happen. Bodies fly. And this is why the new regulation has come into effect.

(We’ve featured at least of of the clips on an episode of Traffic Light; it’s the one set to R Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.”)

This should be everyone’s fear about living in a city with such crippling traffic. In Beijing on Friday, a woman in her 50s died in the back of an ambulance because it was stuck in a gridlock. How bad was it? According to the doctor, Wang Yuzhu, as reported by Sina:

“The scene of the accident is no more than 3 kilometers from the hospital, yet it took us a good 40 minutes to arrive there! Barely any cars made way for our ambulance! So woeful!” Wang wrote on Weibo.

That is horrific. The ambulance driver, Zhang Shaojun, said about half of drivers on the road typically never give way for his vehicle.

In Taiwan earlier this year, a somewhat similar thing happened where cars didn’t give way for an emergency vehicle carrying a victim who died en route. But I’m not sure if we can chalk up what happened in Beijing to callousness. The above cartoon sums it up: 

Ambulance: “Life is at stake, please make way!”
Car: “I want to make way, but I can’t!”

Such tragicomedy, right there, modern and multifold. Wang adds:

Wang said the ambulance couldn’t get by. “Many cars were parked on bicycle lanes that night, making it impossible for us to proceed.”

“It is hard to say this really reflects on the lack of social ethics among the public, but I do hope that people won’t park their cars in emergency lanes, or in case of emergency, people could move aside a little,” she added.

More via Sina:

“What cold-blooded souls they must be! How can you expect such drivers of little morality to make way for ambulances?” said Internet user Heikaixin.

Some, however, noted that the misuse of “privilege vehicles” like police cars using their sirens without having any emergency has led to the mistrust or even disgust among the public.

“I have to say that many ambulances and police cars misuse sirens even without any emergency tasks. The true murderer of the woman is the loss of trust,” added user betty-lmw.

Wang refuted the rumors of misuse of sirens by ambulances, saying that their vehicles are supervised by the central command center and they only use sirens when it is really necessary.

(H/T Alicia)

As if we needed more proof that it’s difficult getting from point A to B in this city, here’s documented proof. Via Global Times:

It took Beijingers an average of 52 minutes to commute to work this year, the longest journey time among 50 cities nationwide, according to a report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reported the Legal Mirror Wednesday.

The statistics show that the average commute time increased 14 minutes compared to the average time last year.

The report blamed most commuting problems on the public transport network not keeping up with development.

Obviously the sheer number of cars on the road is a problem, but this Sina article implies that public transportation deserves some blame as well. But the real problem? Attitudes.

Rumors are that the government is considering removing half of the city’s private cars from the road — odd/even license plates, like during the Olympics — and here’s one person who is very unhappy about it:

“Traffic control has already brought inconvenience to people, and it is ridiculous that the government wants to increase the inconvenience further,” said Zhao Xiaotong, 22, from Beijing.

“If public transportation is convenient enough, people will stop driving cars immediately,” she said.

Ms. Zhao is being very optimistic with her last statement — either that or she thinks public transportation means getting picked up by a chauffeur. It’s true that some subway transfer stations are too large, but let’s face it, some people could use the exercise. What we don’t need are wider thoroughfares (they don’t work), or anyone defending the idea that adding cars to this city’s roads is acceptable.

The problem is mindset. People like cars because traditional thinking is that cars are a necessary part of middle-class life. This mentality — like so many others — will change with time. In the present, though, we can only grumble, and perhaps laugh.

(H/T Alicia)

This is the music they play in movies when a hero is about to die. It’s dramatic, it builds upon its own tension, it tells a story of sorrow, sacrifice, and honor, or fulfillment, or redemption. (In fact, I’m pretty sure it comes from a movie, but I couldn’t tell you which one.) And it’s incredibly overwrought, never quite right for our world but fine for an alternate reality made in a studio.

It’s somehow perfect when set to scenes of cars going nowhere in China, for this is an alternate reality as well. Knowing that traffic is always hell, why do drivers still insist on driving? Why risk hours, days of one’s life? Where could they possibly want to drive that would make them ignore the specter of an all-day jam?

China’s “worst week of traffic” is supposedly over, but these images show that traffic is as bad as ever. If you’re going on vacation, folks, do yourselves a favor: take a train; rent a car upon arrival. Spare us the dramatic death of common sense, set to music. QQ video for those in China after the jump.

Were you on the road yesterday? Around rush hour, perhaps? If so, we offer our sincerest condolences. Also: HA HA! SUCKER! YOU WERE ON THE ROAD!

According to the newscast above, it took nearly two hours to drive the 2.5 kilometers from Liangmaqiao to Dongzhimen starting at 5:30 pm. I’ve done the math for you: that’s an average speed of about 1.3 kilometers per hour, or 0.8 mph. The average human being can walk 3 to 3.5 mph, which, in summary, is quadruple the speed that cars moved from Liangmaqiao to Dongzhimen in northeast Beijing yesterday at 6 pm. If a megaton bomb dropped had dropped on Liangmaqiao at that time, a thousand thank-you notes would have rained down from heaven: Thank you for ending our misery.

Citywide, the average speed of cars around rush hour was a mere 13.7 kilometers per hour, or 8.5 mph. That. Is. INSANE. People on social media thought so as well — “jam,” “annoyed,” and “traffic laws” were among the most searched terms on Sina Weibo. Also trending at the top, I imagine: “fuck,” “shit,” “murder,” “drink the blood of dead puppies,” “most painful death by a thousand needles and disembowelment,” “how do I rape adjacent driver with a crowbar,” and “dadgummit.”

Beijing’s traffic already constantly forever sucks goat testicles all the time, but Traffic Week from Hell — as drivers go nuts before National Day holiday – is expected to last until Saturday. CNTV reports:

The Beijing Transport Commission predicted 7 days in the month on which the roads will become super jammed.

Wednesday. Cars with license plates ending in 4 and 9 are forbidden from driving on the roads in the city. The number “4″ has the same pronounciation as “death” in Chinese, and is unpopular with Chinese people when choosing phone numbers and plates. So this vehicle restriction doesn’t seem to give too relief on the city’s traffic.

I don’t drive here, and never will, so every time I see a traffic jam like this, it’s funny to me in a grotesque, horrifying, and unfathomable way that makes me question my moral quality and capacity to be an empathetic human being.

But, man, I tell ya — this really is how I feel:

ONLY because I can think of no other way of protecting myself against the inevitable anger and self-wallowing that will result when I get stuck in one of these traffic jams. Fuck traffic, man. I would totally rather rip the entrails out of a puppy and suffer death by a thousand dadgummits.

Here’s a video of one brave driver caught in the jam trying to rationalize life (YouTube / Youku).