Question of the Week
I've lived in New Jersey, Florida, and (briefly) California, and
seen drivers all over this country. I've traveled to Europe
(though not Rome), and seen many Europeans drive. I spent 2
years in Asia, and I'm convinced that Taiwan's drivers are the
worst. Here are some examples:
1. In Taiwan, traffic signals are just a rough guideline for
navigating an intersection. I've seen cab drivers cruise through
red lights going 80. If nobody's coming, drivers of motorcycles
routinely run red lights. Stop signs use the Chinese word for
'stop', which also means 'park' (as in 'park the car'). Why
would they want to do that?
2. Painted lane stripes are often treated as so much decoration,
with no significance as far as guiding traffic goes. On a 4-lane
divided highway, it's not unusual to see 6-8 cars lined up at a
red light (during rush hour, they usually stop, at least for a
while). The taxis especially will pull around other cars or
slide between two vehicles stopped at a light -- they'll even
pull up on the sidewalk to get up to the front. (If you've ever
been to a Chinese train station, the concept is much the same:
there are no lines, everyone just jostles their way to the
front.)
3. Many Taiwanese grew up without owning a car. Until fairly
recently, owning a car was a luxury. As a result, people are
extraordinarily knowledgeable about the vast and serviceable bus
system, but they don't know how to get anywhere. This leads
people to drive around, sometimes the wrong way on one way
streets, apparently aimlessly but in the hopes of chancing upon
their destination. A related complaint is that the Taiwanese are
among the worst in the world for giving directions.
A friend of mine discovered an astonishing and deeply satisfying
explanation for the poor quality of driving in Taiwan. What's
puzzling is that in some respects, Chinese society is incredibly
organized: their systems of education and government, though
bureaucratic in the extreme, are quite well ordered. So why not
traffic?
The explanation may be: Confucius never wrote a word about
traffic. The general theory is that everything Confucius
discussed remains well-organized in Chinese society, but
everything else is chaos. As a first approximation, it's pretty
good!
Good question.
Michael
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