MY Mazda Axela, after running 14 months without a permanent license registration, finally has been grounded by new traffic rules on cars with out-of-town plates. I have truly become a pariah.

I have been in a state of limbo, using temporary license plates, since I bought the car last year. I figured I would eventually secure a permanent Shanghai car plate when my luck turned in the monthly city auctions. But anxious for the freedom of personal mobility, I decided I wanted to drive even before that happened.

Under the municipal iron fist to control vehicle numbers and Shanghai’s ever-worsening traffic congestion, cars like mine that haven’t been permanently registered have been relegated as outcasts.

Earlier this month, cars with Shanghai-issued temporary licenses were banned from elevated ring roads as shortcuts in rush hours. They have been dumped into the same second-class category as cars with permanent out-of-town car plates. And those who use non-local temporary licenses to extend their driving life after three-month Shanghai temporary licenses expire are deemed third-class citizens, forbidden even to drive inside Shanghai’s core area enclosed by the outer ring roads.

The rules blow a hole in theory that people can somehow bide their time while waiting to win a car plate in the auctions. License plates cost more than 84,000 yuan (US$12,936) nowadays. In an auction this month, the chances of winning a plate were a mere 4.6 percent. That suggests an average 22-month wait for optimists. Pessimists might figure they will never get a plate.

The auctions became like a lucky draw three years ago, when a price-ceiling mechanism was introduced to damp market speculation.

This month I failed to win a plate on my 20th try. That effectively immobilized my driving, making me the owner of a “white elephant” on wheels. People like me still pay car taxes, insurance, parking fees and maintenance costs for vehicles that end up being little more than ornamental displays in our parking spots.

“That’s the ultimate price you pay for getting a little ahead of yourself,” I am often lectured, as I bite my lips to avoid a tart response.

It’s all extremely frustrating and unfair. Why couldn’t there be some compassion for drivers like me, like more favorable odds of winning a plate for chronic losers? Like consideration for families with only one car? Like dispensation for those of us born in this city?

It’s grating to hear out-of-town dialects spoken by drivers who do have permanent Shanghai plates, while those of us who speak Shanghainese comprise an ever larger number of those driving with non-local plates.

“Shanghai is becoming uninhabitable,” lamented my friend Alex, with a great deal of empathy toward the skyrocketing cost of housing in places with easy Metro access, while those living in far-flung suburbs get stuck with cars they can’t legally drive.

As a relative newcomer to this city, he considered himself lucky to secure a Shanghai car plate recently. As a native resident, where does that leave me?

A crack in the system

Instead of passively waiting for the unknown to lead my way, I always prefer to take the driver’s seat. The fact that one can buy a car without a car plate quota seems to me a crack in the system. It triggered an instinct in me to consider myself a tiny spot, no matter how temporary, on the already crowded roads of this big metropolis.

“I will not suggest your getting a permanent out-of-town car plate while crossing your fingers for a Shanghai car plate,” said Mr Zong, the man who sold me my car. “There might be no going back for your car once it settles down. The policy that allows it for now may change.”

Then, in the next breath, he asked me to refer potential customers to him whether they have plate quotas or not. The latest round of tightening on road rules must have scared off quite a few buyers. Yet the city, even with its clampdown on official car registration, has never directly restricted car sales. After all, it hosts several major carmakers as key drivers of the city’s economy.

It was a policy pitfall that I drove blindly into, with a fair amount of aggression and self-righteousness. Battles for limited urban resources sometimes get intense and ugly as boundaries blur under regulatory ambiguity and uncertainty. So why not make the most of my rights while I still could?

I really wonder if restricting out-of-town car plate users will really do anything to improve traffic flow. If anything, traffic in Shanghai has become a jungle of defending road rights.

In an all too typical scene, cars encroach upon bike lanes, bike riders weave through traffic and jaywalking pedestrians expect everyone to stop for them. It is hard to say where this chain of wrongdoing and aggressive behavior starts.

My journalist friend Rose said she thinks it demonstrates our force of habit — snatching out of fear of missing out. Gains across lines are too tempting to ignore because traffic rules are often not well enforced.

I confessed to her how driving in Shanghai makes me prone to becoming a hardened lawbreaker. I can think of the times I have parked illegally on a roadside to grab a coffee takeaway, just copying a line of cars in front of me. We weren’t caught and fined 200 yuan. It’s all so easy.

Rose didn’t quite see it that way. She took a harder line.

“A small fine is a slap on the wrist,” she said. “Illegally parked cars should be smashed.”

And she showed me the 2011 photo of a car in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius that violated road rules and was reduced to scrap by the then mayor driving a tank into it.

I was a bit surprised to see such an aggressive side to the gentle Rose. Her frustration with cars illegally blocking roads must have gotten the best of her.

Violence to defend road rights is certainly on the increase. A video in China went viral online last month, showing a BYD car rammed by a Volkswagen as it was aggressively trying to cut in front across lanes. The VW driver said he rammed the lane-changing motorist intentionally as a lesson about yielding right of way.

I wonder if road rage is every justified and if it is contagious. Earlier this month, I myself refused to let someone cross two lanes of traffic in front of me, and narrowly escaped with a few dents to my car.

That ended up being the last time I drove. My car went to the repair shop, with the other driver’s insurance paying for the repairs.

My car has been parked in the repair shop ever since. Since the new regulations came into effect, I technically can’t drive in the city proper anymore. A loud and clear statement of how boundaries are marked.