Country Driving. Peter Hessler
system somehow could have channeled the hutong mentality, maybe all of us would have been fine.
But people didn’t respond as well to the open space of a new road. Some of it was poor planning: by 2001, Beijing had suddenly become home to over one million vehicles, and the city’s infrastructure struggled to catch up. South of the hutong where I lived, old neighborhoods had been cleared out for bigger roads, but traffic rules were often bizarre. At one major intersection, some genius urban planner had located the left turn lane on the far right side of the road, which meant that anybody heading in that direction had to cut across five lanes of traffic. If he successfully made the turn and continued straight for another mile, he reached another intersection where the traffic signals had been mistimed so badly that lights were green in all directions for a good five seconds. Elsewhere in the city, entire districts were under construction. Roads were half built; signs were poorly planned; unmarked ramps led to mystery thoroughfares. Beijing maps featured cloverleaf exchanges that could have been designed by M. C. Escher:
Even today, when some of the road problems have been improved, city driving is an adventure. And trouble is inevitable in a place where most drivers are rookies. In China, the transition has been so abrupt that many traffic patterns come directly from pedestrian life—people drive the way they walk. They like to move in packs, and they tailgate whenever possible. They rarely use turn signals. Instead they rely on automobile body language: if a car edges to the left, you can guess that he’s about to make a turn. And they are brilliant at improvising. They convert sidewalks into passing lanes, and they’ll approach a roundabout in reverse direction if it seems faster. If they miss an exit on a highway, they simply pull onto the shoulder, shift into reverse, and get it right the second time. They curb-sneak in traffic jams, the same way Chinese people do in ticket lines. Tollbooths can be hazardous, because a history of long queues has conditioned people into quickly evaluating options and making snap decisions. When approaching a toll, drivers like to switch lanes at the last possible instant; it’s common to see an accident right in front of a booth. Drivers rarely check their rearview mirrors. Windshield wipers are considered a distraction, and so are headlights.
In fact, the use of headlights was banned in Beijing until the late 1970s, when the nation’s leaders began going overseas in increasing numbers. During the early Reform years, these trips were encouraged by governments in Europe and the United States, who hoped that glimpses of democracy would convince Chinese officials to rethink their policies. In 1983 Chen Xitong, the mayor of Beijing, made one such visit to New York. On the way to and from his meetings with Mayor Ed Koch and other dignitaries, Chen made a crucial road observation: Manhattan drivers turn on their lights at night. When Chen returned to China, he decreed that Beijing motorists do the same. It’s unclear what conclusions he drew from his encounters with American democracy (eventually he ended up in prison for corruption), but at least he did his part for traffic safety.
Nevertheless, Chinese drivers haven’t grasped the subtleties of headlight use. Most people keep their lights off until it’s pitch-dark, and then they flip on the brights. Almost nobody uses headlights in rain, fog, snow, or twilight conditions—in fact, this is one of the few acts guaranteed to annoy a Chinese driver. They don’t mind if you tailgate, or pass on the right, or drive on the sidewalk. You can back down a highway entrance ramp without anybody batting an eyelash. But if you switch on your lights during a rainstorm, approaching drivers will invariably flash their brights in annoyance.
For the most part, though, they’re unflappable, and it’s hard to imagine another place where people take such joy in driving so badly. On the open road it feels like everybody has just been unleashed from a hutong—there’s a sudden rush of speed and competition, and the greatest thrill comes from passing other motorists. People pass on hills; they pass on turns; they pass in tunnels. If they get passed themselves, they immediately try to pass the other vehicle back, as if it were a game. From what I can tell, that’s the only question on the written driver’s exam with three correct answers:
77. When overtaking another car, a driver should pass
a) on the left.
b) on the right.
c) wherever, depending on the situation.
On the exam, questions are taken directly from government-published study materials, and the Public Safety License Bureau provided me with a booklet that contained 429 multiple-choice questions and 256 true-false queries. Often these questions capture the spirit of the road (“True/False: In a taxi, it’s fine to carry a small amount of explosive material”), but it’s less obvious how they prepare people for driving in China. In fact the trick is to study the wrong answers. They describe common traffic maneuvers with such vividness that you can practically see the faces behind the wheel:
81. After passing another vehicle, you should
a) wait until there is a safe distance between the two vehicles, make a right-turn signal, and return to the original lane.
b) cut in front of the other car as quickly as possible.
c) cut in front of the other car and then slow down.
117. When approaching a marked pedestrian crossing, you should
a) slow down and stop if there are pedestrians.
b) accelerate in order to catch up with the car directly in front of you, and then cross closely behind him.
c) drive straight through, because pedestrians should give vehicles the right of way.
80. If, while preparing to pass a car, you notice that it is turning left, making a U-turn, or passing another vehicle, you should
a) pass on the right.
b) not pass.
c) honk, accelerate, and pass on the left.
Lots of answers involve honking. In a Chinese automobile, the horn is essentially neurological—it channels the driver’s reflexes. People honk constantly, and at first all horns sound the same, but over time you learn to interpret them. In this sense it’s as complicated as the language. Spoken Chinese is tonal, which means that a single sound like ma has different meanings depending on whether it’s flat, rising, falling and rising, or falling sharply. A single Chinese horn, on the other hand, can mean at least ten distinct things. A solid hooooonnnnkkkkk is intended to attract attention. A double sound—hooooonnnnkkkkk, hooooonnnnkkkkk—indicates irritation. There’s a particularly long hooooooooonnnnnnnnnkkkkkk that means that the driver is stuck in bad traffic, has exhausted curb-sneaking options, and would like everybody else on the road to disappear. A responding hooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkk proves they aren’t going anywhere. There’s a stuttering, staggering honk honk hnk hnk hnk hnk hnk hnk that represents pure panic. There’s the afterthought honk—the one that rookie drivers make if they were too slow to hit the button before a situation resolved itself. And there’s a short basic honk that simply says: My hands are still on the wheel, and this horn continues to serve as an extension of my nervous system. Other honks appear on the exam:
353. When passing an elderly person or a child, you should
a) slow down and make sure you pass safely.
b) continue at the same speed.
c) honk the horn to tell them to watch out.
269. When you enter a tunnel, you should
a) honk and accelerate.
b) slow down and turn on your lights.
c) honk and maintain