The most important lesson of The Tank Man

Yield to pedestrians!!

I was hit by a vehicle in the street a couple of days ago.  This is at least the fourth or fifth time that's happened to me while I've been living in China.  As opposed to NEVER in the thirty-odd years I've lived in other countries.  That's a fair indication of just how murderously bad driving standards are here.

I think driving is particularly awful here in Beijing, where the people seem to be imbued with an especially robust bloody-mindedness, a selfish conviction that rules don't apply to them.  Such rules as there are, that is.  There don't seem to be many.  And even the few pathetically inadequate traffic rules are not backed by any significant enforcement (again, it may be that the situation is particularly bad in the capital: nearly all the police here are busy monitoring potential 'subversives'; traffic police are just about invisible, non-existent - trying to curb homicidal incompetence on the roads just isn't any kind of priority).  Driver education is minimal.  Road junctions are poorly designed; traffic light timing is illogical, insane.  The problems seem too numerous to begin to address, impossible to rectify.

But the No. 1 problem - at least here in ME, ME, ME Beijing - is that nobody pays any attention to pedestrians crossing the road.  A green crossing signal means nothing, because drivers will often have a green left filter light at the same time (and you can turn right on a red light!); and drivers turning left or right at a junction will not slow down - much less stop - for pedestrians attempting to cross the road; indeed, at times it seems they actively delight in trying to scare you, aiming straight for you and trying to force you to scurry out of their way.

Of course, I tend to take them on: I'll keep obstinately to my chosen path and pace, refusing to be hurried out of the way; sometimes I'll even stop in my tracks and turn to face them, demanding that they STOP, or detour around me.  It's a dangerous game, and I'll probably get splatted one day.

Drivers turning left are a particular problem because the major roads in Beijing are so wide that they are given a very generous turning circle and scarcely need to slow down at all to make their turn; they'll just steam straight across the junction at 25 or 30 mph, or even more, heedless of the vulnerable pedestrians in their path.  

That's what happened to me the other day.  I got creased across the left thigh by a lightweight mini-van taking a turn at well over 20 mph.  The driver saw me, but made no attempt to moderate his speed or steer around me; he expected me to avoid him.  The dozen or so other people attempting to cross with me saw the lunatic gleam in his eyes and either ran to the far side of the road or scuttled backwards out of his way.  Me, I just kept on walking at a normal pace, expecting that the guy would realise I was going to be slap bang in front of him when he reached the crossing and that he would have to deviate just slightly to the left or the right to avoid killing me.  He didn't.  He just kept on coming - way too fast to have had any chance of braking to a halt.  And, at the very last moment, realising the bastard was going to run me down, I had to check my stride, take a swift half-pace backwards, and flinch away from the speeding vehicle.  And the bastard still clipped me quite hard.

Such murderous lunacy on the roads is one of the most depressing things about living in China, and one of the things that most disposes me towards giving up on the country and moving somewhere else.