Glad I don't ride HERE!

[BumbleBeeDave]

Watch . . . it speaks for itself! :eek: eek: eek: eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QESfEd180rQ

BBD

[gemship]

Nobody got killed in any of those incidents? Great music by the way. I get the feeling from watching that they don't use stop signs or traffic signal lights in China.

[97CSI]

They are relatively new at this. You can tell by the slow speeds showing a lack of confidence. Give them a few years until the novelty wears off.

[weisan]

From another perspective, check out this video, this is fairly common sight, it's taken at a busy intersection with no traffic lights and everybody made it through safely....EVERYDAY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab48_0rYEU

[tele]

They are relatively new at this. You can tell by the slow speeds showing a lack of confidence. Give them a few years until the novelty wears off.

then it'll be like the Russian video from the other day. :banana:

[onekgguy]

Watch . . . it speaks for itself! :eek: eek: eek: eek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QESfEd180rQ

BBD

What's up with the driver at 2:00 in?

Kevin g

[cadence90]

.... ..
.

[rice rocket]

I have family in China, traffic lights weren't obeyed at all until ~10 years ago iirc. Only time they would is if a policeman was standing in the intersection. I guess they started cracking down or something, because last time I visited, people started to actually stop at red lights. :rolleyes: Imagine that.

[pbjbike]

Dave, you live where you can only imagine that much traffic, let alone cyclists at every intersection. :beer:

[Nil Else]

Ouch... acupuncturist's heaven...

There are many countries that has many remote area busy intersections without any kind of traffic sign or signal... or rule. The rule is bullies go through first and the weak gets pushed around... this also means men will absolutely NEVER yield to woman drivers in many places in Asia. I bet many of the slowmo speed accidents in the vid involved female drivers driving through while male drivers expect female drivers to yield for them. It's the ancient cultures that's very slow to change... but good news is it is changing.

There are extremely narrow roads only wide enough for one car to go through without any rules such as one way system; two cars coming from opposite sides meet in the middle of one of these loooooong narrow roads... *stalemate*... driver's size and sex matters in deciding who's going for a lengthy drive in reverse and crushed pride.

Once I asked a taxi driver when does the rule allow you to go through red lights as he drove through a red light... I was being sincere, really... coz I kept seeing cars drive through and I thought there's some sort of exception rule at certain time or something... I almost got beat up by the taxi driver. I wasn't trying to be funny and he didn't think that was funny.

[learlove]

They are relatively new at this. You can tell by the slow speeds showing a lack of confidence. Give them a few years until the novelty wears off.

Yeah, what do you expect from a society/people who were basically in the stone age until about 30-40 years ago?

pretty much sums it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik_wh6D2BRU&feature=related

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJowTNP_QVk&feature=related

spot on also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msHm4dQUwas&feature=related

almost hurts to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRFfzgtHsgw&feature=related

[victoryfactory]

One thing you need to know about driving in
third world countries: There is usually
a very well defined pecking order as to
who gets the right of way. This is what confuses and
infuriates Americans who grew up with a sense of fairness and order.

Govt vehicles
giant trucks
buses
smaller trucks
taxis
private cars
motor bikes
bikes and peds have no rights

once you get the feel for the local
flavor you will be safer

On the other hand, there's China. Yikes

VF

[97CSI]

Yeah, what do you expect from a society/people who were basically in the stone age until about 30-40 years ago?Be of hyperbole here. They very nearly kicked us out of Korea 60 years ago. Not quite the stone age. Their long-term view of the world has gotten them to where they are to day and our 'next quarter's bonus' view has gotten us to where we are today. Someone is winning and it isn't us.

[ultraman6970]

If you guys see the video some weird stuff is going on, for example chinese drivers should be used to weird/stupid cycling drivers, some of the accidents are because the cyclists turn wrong for example, the one with the chick (i believe) who ran over the moron standing in the middle of the road is just like too much for me.

One moron and another moron behind the steering wheel, the final thought about the video?

NOW EVERYBODY KNOWS WHY ASIANS SUCK DRIVING (im part asian so i can say this)

Awesome video.

[Nil Else]

NOW EVERYBODY KNOWS WHY ASIANS SUCK DRIVING (im part asian so i can say this)


Did not know about this fact nor, if true, does any of this explain why.

[ultraman6970]

Well i know it was a generalization but look at the darn videos. Its just nutz, it is so expensive just put a 4 corners stop sign?? Or even just stop because u see somebody coming the other way? Or if you know you are driving a car you have to be more careful with people riding bikes? All is common sense after all

Well thats life, happy im not there.

[learlove]

Be of hyperbole here. They very nearly kicked us out of Korea 60 years ago. Not quite the stone age. Their long-term view of the world has gotten them to where they are to day and our 'next quarter's bonus' view has gotten us to where we are today. Someone is winning and it isn't us.

sam and rodney take care of that problem in the last minute of this clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfgrj_62-Y&feature=related

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . with any of what seem to be rather prejudiced comments about Asian drivers. It does seem to me, though, that unless this video is somehow altered, not many of these vehicles were moving that fast.

some of the collisions do indeed involve car drivers who are just not watching where they are going. It seems like many of these drivers--especially when the collision is bike on bike or bike--would have easily seen the other vehicle coming and been able to take some sort of evasive action. Yet too many of them just seem to be oblivious to anyone else being on the road.

I agree with Ultraman . . . certainly some sort of traffic device would have helped at this corner. Or would everybody just ignore it as others have implied.

Either way, it's just nuts! :eek:

BBD

[Nil Else]

That's just a collection worthy of being on YouTube but I'm sure many good savvy Chinese drivers are outraged that they are stereo typed this way.

When I visited Asia first time I thought the way they drive was absolutely lunatic and they were all nuts/bad drivers. Now I respect their driving skill... they just have different way of driving and traffic flow. They are very reactive drivers and, I think, very skilled drivers... you should see them park their cars into spaces you'd never think you could turn into nor fit! I used to get absolutely astonished. There would be some crazy stuff going on in the middle of busy roads like a motorcycle carrying two story building size stack of cardboard boxes but the traffic doesn't even flinch and goes around smoothly... no problem. I've seen some CRAZY stuff but these drivers reactions are phenomenal.

The person driving the car I was in missed the exit we are supposed to get off on a busy 60mph+ 6 lane highway and she slowed down to crawl to think of her next move. I asked her doesn't she fear she'll get rear ended and possibly get killed. She said don't worry they'll just go around....

Cars will come, I mean LITERALLY, within a couple of inches regularly. If that happened here there would be fist fights. People are very used to very close contacts and your personal space is near nil. Get used to having skin contact while waiting in lines at the post office... if you leave even just a little gap someone will squeeze in and they think nothing of it. Driving is the same. They get extremely close to you and think nothing of it. Cars will regularly push their way in when it looks simply impossible... again no one thinks much of it and life goes on.

If you have to drive there I bet you better adapt to their driving ways very quickly... you gotta follow the flow of the stampede or else you'll get stomped to death. Individual drivers have no choice how the traffic behaves as a collective whole...you just become very good at dealing with it.

Of course there are bad/beginner drivers regardless of where you are. China no doubt is experiencing huge influx on increased new drivers these days. Some beginner drivers gets away with pulling crazy stuff like cutting across fast moving 6 lane traffic no problem over there coz driver's are used to reacting to all types of freaky craziness that goes on regularly...generally.. unlike how the video collection shows... however if you drop that person in the middle of America and pull that stuff... the survival rate would be very low... like the Family Guy bit. Doesn't mean all Asian are inherently bad drivers... just different cultures and crash of cultures.

As for the slowmo accidents I remember someone I knew practicing driving in an empty parking lot hitting the only light post in the whole parking lot going less than 5 mph. Now, say, conservatively multiply that by 100.000 in just one city.