Parking Costs in China's large cities is becoming prohibitive. And so it should. Too many cars in a city reduces the quality of life for everyone.
Anyone who has recently visited China and Beijing knows that there are too many cars on the streets, thus clogging the free flow of traffic. Gone are the days of riding a bicycle. Public transit is the only way to get around, but buses are just as slow as cars. Beijing has started a lottery for potential new car buyers, which helps. The solution may lie in a scarcity of parking spaces. If you have no parking space you have no place to park your car.
So pathetic are the driving standards in China that there are a huge number of crashes. China is a world leader in vehicular crashes per capita. If only there were some rules that everyone followed. I propose simple ones such as drive/ride on the right side of the road and stop at traffic lights. It seems like total chaos if there are not enough police around to hand out and collect tickets. I find this video quite amusing, but should not, because people in the video get seriously hurt and cars and bikes get damaged. It is funny because sadly it does reflect what we saw on Chinese roads when we visited China.
Without a doubt the “right turner” is the most dangerous situation a motorcyclist faces while riding. Statistics show that more motorcyclists get hurt and killed at intersections by a right turning driver than any other cause. Why do car drivers exclaim “I did not see him/her” when the weather was clear and there were no other cars in the intersection? It is not just motorcyclists in danger, as bicyclists, pedestrians and other vehicles also bear the pain of inattentive drivers. Is it true that these drivers are so lacking in skill, so blatant in their disregard for their fellow humans that they are grasping for any plausible explanation, or is it something else? There is a theory that humans filters out objects that are deemed not dangerous, which leads to the subject of “inattentional blindness”. Maybe these lame explanations from drivers point to a visual impairment that is innate with all human beings.
As a memory exercise I will attempt to capture as much detail as I can remember of a car crash I witnessed at 09:40 at Birchmount Road and Sheppard Avenue East, Toronto, Ontario on May 7 2009 (today). I will refrain from doing any analysis or draw any conclusions because the thought process might cloud the observations.