J-term in Shanghai The driving in Shanghai is schizophrenic, but in more ways than one might expect
GREG WENZEL, Photography major, writes: "To live outside the law, one must be honest." --taken from Bob Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie"
As soon as we stomped on the tour bus that took us from the Shanghai airport to our motel, we realized that the driving in Shanghai was something special. Our bus driver, a hard-working, Shanghainese spitting madman, had the cutthroat driving techniques of a contestant in "Deathrace 3000." These tactics include: veering through red lights, insane u-turns that many times involve the use of the sidewalk, and near-death clippings of pedestrians on bicycles and motor scooters and otherwise (which is strangely refreshing in a morbid sense, after dealing with some critical-mass bicycle crazies back in Chicago). The use of the horn is not something to be meek about in this town; it is used as much as the steering wheel or the stick shift, just another device to control your environment. I have been in cabs where the driver honks habitually for no real reason all, just some weird schizo impulse from the brain.
The transitioning state of Shanghai from an old third-world city to a modern one skews the driving as well. Most taxi drivers I have noticed have two forms of driving, calm "western-styled" driving in the more gentrified areas, where the law, designated lanes, and cops are prevalent. Then there is the lawless, cutthroat style mentioned beforehand in the old areas and the highways. There are no real traffic laws here, at least not ones that are routinely enforced. This creates a lawless driving experience where anything goes and nothing is bogged down by rigged western-styled mentalities. There is no room here for pussyfooting and half-assed grandma driving; it's do-or-die Darwinism in the clinches. It keeps one honest and real, or sends you into a heaping mass of insanity and twisted metal.
My attempt to Google Shanghai accident statistics proved to be futile, but I
have a feeling the rates might actually be lower.