The traffic in Shanghai is chaotic, but somehow works for the most part. Every driver is doing his best to pilot his car to its destination quickly as possible. Regardless of pedestrians crossing, cars in the space the driver wishes to occupy, or the accidents caused in the driver’s wake. The only consideration is whether the driver’s car gets damaged. One popular tactic is to straddle lanes to allow easy access to whichever lane turns out to be faster. Left hand turns are a game of chicken with oncoming traffic.
On the positive side there are some great traffic control technologies in use, including freeway billboards that use colored LEDs to indicate traffic conditions near your location and stop lights that show how much longer the green or red light will last.
I don’t have any pictures or videos to do this justice, but this YouTube Video is a good start.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I forgot to mention the honking.
April 9th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
The streetlights in Delhi had the same contraptions — counting down the red lights. People would use this time to turn off their vehicles and walk around, stretch, buy a few things, run to the street vendor for a snack, or take a snooze. (Some of the lights were upwards of 5 minutes.)
April 9th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Wow, no 5 minute lights in Shanghai. I think the main goal of the count down is to keep people from running the lights.
Although a 5 minute break would have been nice at times.