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Sharp blitzes futile against reckless road habits
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Dear Editor,
I am writing with regard to the motoring offenses campaign which Doug Young has made the subject of his recent column (“New campaign tames Shanghai’s unruly drivers,” April 2). He stated that this campaign has “no specific time-frame,” although I had read previously that it was to last three months.
I recall a campaign many years ago aimed at tackling the excessive and usually unnecessary use of vehicle horns. It had a noticeable effect while the campaign lasted, but everyone reverted to type once it ended.
At the start of the current campaign one or even two police officers were evident at major road intersections, stopping drivers and riders guilty of traffic infractions. It made me wonder what all these officers are doing the rest of the time.
Then last week I was astonished to read that police in Huangpu District have been given powers to issue parking tickets, normally the preserve of traffic police. I was astonished because to me a policeman is a policeman. I have never come across an instance of a law enforcement officer being restricted in what laws he is able to prosecute. It possibly explains why there are so many parking offenses, why motor cyclists ride on restricted roads and why they ignore red lights even under the noses of police officers. They seem to think that red traffic lights don’t apply to them.
It takes a long time to change ingrained habits and requires a sustained effort, not just short, sharp blitzes. In the UK children are taught road safety and the Highway Code in primary schools so that it becomes second nature to double check in all directions before crossing a road. Children are not allowed to ride a bicycle to school unless they have passed a proficiency test. In the years I have lived in Shanghai that instruction has saved me from injury on a number of occasions, the danger usually coming from motor cyclists who ride on whatever side of the road they please.
I also wonder why so many pedestrians like to stand in the road instead of on the sidewalk when waiting to cross at traffic lights? What happened to the army of traffic assistants who were around for several years and who tried their best to prevent such encroachment and jaywalking? I am often horrified when I see young children in pushchairs being poked into the path of oncoming traffic by their supposed guardians, seemingly oblivious to the potential danger.
Apart from rogue drivers, who park their cars on sidewalks with impunity, often forcing pedestrians to walk in the road, we poor foot people are also harangued and beeped at by motor cyclists who think that they have some kind of superiority by virtue of their wheels and motors. When this happens on a sidewalk and the sound comes from behind I tend to become rather deaf. I am used to a culture where, to use a nautical term, “Steam gives way to sail.” I feel pedestrians are the peasants of urban life when it comes to rights of passage, to pun that phrase. Car users in UK will generally give way to pedestrians where right-of-way is not clearly defined, such as turning into or out of a driveway to a residential community. I have witnessed a cacophony of agitated horn-sounding when a driver holds up traffic because he/she needs to make a turn across oncoming traffic to reach his community. Having said that I often see drivers making inappropriate maneuvers in inappropriate places and the inappropriateness is made worse by drivers refusing to stop to allow the maneuver to be completed in case it delays them by a second.
In spite of the often chaotic road traffic conditions there seems to be an uncanny ability to avoid accidents. It’s almost like the fairground “Dodgems” ride (also known in UK as “Bumper Cars”). Surprisingly I have witnessed few road accidents in Shanghai but the road accident statistics for China don’t make for good reading.
Kind regards,
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