Your Typical Chinese Intersection

In light of all the recent discussion of Chinese driving, I thought I would point you to this hilarious visual representation of making your way through an average Chinese intersection.  The funniest thing about it is that it's really true. 

I will say that Yinchuan traffic is remarkably calm and orderly, probably because the roads are big and open with a relatively small number of cars/buses/taxis/motorbikes/bicyclists/pedestrians/small children on toy cars.  Beijing is pretty orderly, but the sheer volume of traffic (1000 new cars added to the road every day!) makes things ridiculous.  Weinan was small enough that concepts like right-of-way, yielding, and driving on the right side of the road were foggy at best.

Click here to check out the full post, I'll just introduce enough to hook you in... :)

To introduce you to the intricacies of Beijing driving, I will start with a relatively simple concept: the left turn.

STEP 1:

We see here a typical intersection. The light has just turned green for the east-west streets, and car [A], an enormous black Lexus with pitch black windows, wants to make a left turn into the southbound lanes. Pedestrians wait on each corner. (For purposes of this demonstration, we'll assume no one is running the north-south red light, and no one is jaywalking - a rather large assumption.)

STEP 2:

To make a left turn, it is VITAL that [A] cut off all eastbound traffic as soon as possible. The first few brave or foolish legitimate pedestrians step off the curb; this is of no concern. [A] makes his move.

(Click here to continue the next 10 - yes, 10 - steps)