There is an attitude here that I have been trying to understand for an entire year and I think now that I may have it worked out. I see it displayed on the roads, in markets and in manufactured goods and it is not a positive attitude. It is about getting ahead as fast as possible because there are no consequences. For way too long I thought it was “damn the consequences”, but honestly I see it now as a lack of understanding that there actually are consequences.

This morning there was a guy laying in the middle of the road next to his partially destroyed scooter, while a crowd, including the driver of the car that knocked him over looked on. I didn’t see the accident thank goodness*, so I can’t comment on his personal riding ability, but the fact that he wasn’t wearing a helmet leads me to assume he was riding like all the rest of the people here. I can just picture him zooming out into the traffic without looking and becoming a temporary hood ornament.

There is a T intersection near our compound where a road that skirts the canal joins the main road. Like the rest of the world, the main road users have right of way, but I never drive through there like I have right of way because far too often I have had to brake hard to avoid killing riders, smashing cars and being run over by trucks. The locals just drive round the corner and onto the road like it’s just a continuing part of the street in the form of a sharp bend. These days, more and more I am using alternate routes to avoid the chaos in certain places.

Dying on the road is an extreme consequence, but there are so many other examples of which I will give one that is just frustrating. A freeway can come to a standstill in Beijing without there having to have been an accident for everyone to rubberneck at. All you need is a freeway exit. If the exit is being used, requiring drivers to slow down and line up, instead people will drive down the breakdown lane and jam it up properly. Once it starts to jam up, people will use the next lane out to try and force their way in, which will stall the traffic in that lane and make people use the last remaining free lane. Eventually there will be people two lanes away from the exit trying to get across to use it and the whole freeway will be stopped. Three official lanes and the breakdown lane, all backed up because two or three people couldn’t wait 20 seconds in an orderly line.

*Alex says that the ancient Greek god of luck is too obscure to use here, but as an A** I want to move away from things like “Thank God” and “Bless you.”

**Alex thinks “A” is too obscure for “Athiest”

Alex thinks I am being wierd just for the sake of wierdness.

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