The Price of Driving in China

We thought buying a car in China was difficult, with all the paperwork requirements etc., but driving a car in China has been much more challenging instead.

Up Close & Personal

We thought driving in Thailand was stressful, with all the mopeds around us. When we first moved to China, the roads seemed bigger, so we thought that it would be better here. I was even thinking that with some practice, even I could get used to driving in China. How wrong was I!

There are not as many mopeds on the highway, but there are still many electric bikes. Worst of all, it is the attitude towards traffic safety. A lot of people just don’t seem to pay any attention to what they do. Cars will drift into your lane, without signaling and without looking. Cars will make turns without looking. Cars, bikes, people from the opposite direction will get into your lane for no apparent reason. Cars will stop in the middle of the street, to drop people off, to chat on the phone or to a passer-by, or just because they want to. People driving cars here don’t seem to pay much attention to what’s around them, or to pedestrians.

So is it better to be pedestrians? When I walk, it seems that the cars never pay attention to me and I will need to pay attention so that I don’t get injured (or killed). However, when we drive, it seems that the pedestrians don’t seem to pay any attention to the traffic. We see people walking at night crossing streets without looking and it is extremely difficult to see them. We see people running across the highway to make short cuts. Besides pedestrians, people on motorcycles/mopeds/electric bikes/bikes also don’t pay attention. A lot of time, they don’t wear any helmets. If they do wear one, they often wear these plastic helmets which offer absolutely no protection in an accident. As if that weren’t enough, they would ride these vehicles, at night, without any lights, going contra-traffic, and on highways!

I don’t know where people get their death wishes from in China. In the U.S., student drivers tend to be the most dangerous group to look out for. In China (at least in Zhongshan), they seem to be the safest, because they drive slowly. However, sometimes they drive sooooooooo slowly and people try to pass them, and that can become dangerous as well. On one road near our development, it seems that ALL the learner drivers of Zhongshan are practicing here. It is not uncommon to see 20 learning cars in a row, on different lanes. You can see them doing silly things sometimes as well, and you wonder how good their driving instructors are, and how good a driver they will become once they pass the driving test.

We already had an accident when we first got our car (before we even got the license plate on). I cross my fingers everyday that this will be the only one.

Moreover, we have been warned by multiple people that when driving in China, don’t be a good Samaritan. There are some horror stories of people trying to help, only got themselves into trouble. There was this story about a guy one night saw an older man having some trouble on the street. He stopped his car, got out, and helped the old man, and even called the hospital and got the old man sorted out in there. Then a few days later, he was paid a visit by the old man’s relatives and some policemen claiming that he was responsible for whatever accident/trouble the old man got into. They put him in jail and fined him ¥800K (~$129K). Finally, he just couldn’t take all this any longer and killed himself. I don’t know how much of that story is true, but we keep being told by different people to just mind our own business when driving in China, especially if you have a foreign face.

Parking Lot Troubles

So if driving on the road is bad, parking should not be so bad. Well, we seem to be able to keep our good luck on and off the roads.

In our development, there is hardly any temporary parking on the ground, but we do have this large underground parking lot and it is not difficult to find a space. Some people actually bought a permanent parking spot, but most people (us included), just rent a spot. If you don’t rent, then you’ll pay ¥5 for each day (after 1 hour free parking).

Gary had a few favorite parking spots close to our building. One day, one of those spots was blocked by one of those plastic cones. It seemed that someone (likely the guy next to that spot with permanent parking) was reserving the extra space for himself. Gary parked somewhere else, but then picked up the plastic cone and moved it out of the way. Then next day, it was there again. This time, Gary hid it behind one of pillars in the underground so that it was difficult to see from where the parking spot was. Well, we did not see that cone reappear…

Well, we thought that was the end of the parking lot troubles. Then last week, when we walked into the parking lot, we saw these metal blocks being installed on many empty spots. We flagged a security guard to ask why. Apparently, the New Management Company has decides that since they own the land rights to these spots, they are going to make some more money from it by forcing people to buy parking spots. All the unsold parking spots (which are many) located close to the build entrances are blocked. If you are renting, then you’ll need to park in one of those empty spots that are quite a bit further away. This was done without ANY notifications to anyone. I wonder who came up with that brilliant idea! The guy who seemed to have reserved his own temporary spot before took out the metal block by force (we did not see this, only that the metal thing had been pulled out). We were amused. The next day, the security guards were looming around in the parking lot. This time, Gary wasn’t that amused.

We went to the Management Service department to ask more about this, and they just said that the spots belong to them and people could only access those more convenient spots through buying. Out of curiosity, we asked how much was one of those spots. It costs over ¥60K (~$10K). At the highest daily rate of ¥5/day, it will take parking there every day for close to 33 years to just break-even! I think I will put up with a little inconvenience and continue renting. Apparently everyone is having the same idea as none of the empty spots seem to have been sold.

Traffic Fines

Just as we have gotten over the ridiculous nature of the parking lot incident and started to the funny side of things (because it is so ridiculous), I got a text message from the local Traffic Department that my car had changed lane illegally last week and that I should come in to settle the fines.

China has many traffic cameras that take pictures of any car breaking the traffic law. Points will be accrued. If one reaches 12 points within the year, then the license will be suspended, and one will have to take the exam again (and maybe more tests besides the written exam). So even though it is annoying to have to pay fines, but these cameras are keeping us safer, forcing bad drivers off the road, right?

Wrong! Since the camera can only take pictures of the car license tag, not the driver. Ever so creative, now people with money can just “buy” off their points. Instead of going to the Traffic Department directly, we were told that we could go into any of those auto repair shops and tell them you want to pay the points. You pay the fine (and some extra money), and they will locate someone with a driver license but without a car to go into the Traffic Department and said that he/she was the actual driver driving that car which he borrowed from his “friend”. So if you have money, you can be a terrible driver and still not have any points on your driver license!

We haven’t paid the fine yet. We seem to have plenty of time to do that, so we are not in a hurry. I will talk to a few more friends to see what I should do.

I wonder if we will ever get used to driving in China.

Fantastic Parking Job

We went to the mall today pick up some shoes for Samantha’s school. They must be black, brown, or green. The mall was very busy and it took us quite a few minutes to find a parking space.

We walked around the mall several times, visited every floor, and yet couldn’t find one pair of suitable shoes. There were very few kids shoes to begin with. We did find a few in Bata shoes store, but they all had Angry Bird buckles. As we were walking around the mall, Gary started looking at the school girls and then looked down on their shoes. He almost stopped some of them to ask from where they got their shoes.

We did find some girl shoes in a department store called Robinson. We found quite a few nice pairs (made of plastics), but they all costed between $50-$80, or even more. We were certainly not paying that much for a pair of kids’ shoes. I wondered who would actually buy them.

As we got out of the mall, shoeless, we walked towards our parking spot. Suddenly, Gary stopped short in a panic/amazement. He kept saying, “Oh no, I think we are completely blocked in!”

The parking lot was just like any busy shopping mall parking lot before. Now a few hours later, every lane have a line of cars parked perpendicular to those parked at the normal spots!

After having recovered from the shock, Gary started looking around for a some help. He flagged down an official looking guy and pointed to our car, and the cars blocking our path. The guy took a look, and then walked further up the line, and started pushing one car up, then the next, etc. until he had created a gap big enough for our car to get through. Apparently when there are no more parking spots available, you can park behind someone else’s car and just leave your handbrake off so that it can be moved around!

We got into our car, and with the help of the parking lot attendant, aided by Gary’s superior driving skill, just squeezed through the small opening and back on road, looking for another place to buy Samantha school shoes!