Tuesday, April 22, 2014

No traffic. Yet.

Clear roads ahead?
Shanghai, China
May 2012
For more chaotic Thematic, head here
I grew up in Montreal, so I learned to drive on pothole-infested roads crawling with some of the world's most aggressive drivers. It should have prepared me for pretty much anything, yet one look at the zoo that is Shanghai traffic and I was just as glad to not be at the wheel.

I guess there are different forms of "aggressive" in different parts of the world, and from the looks of it, I really didn't want to tangle with the roads here.

So I did the next best thing and shot out the window as we made our way into town from the airport. This is not an overcast day, by the way. It's smog. And I'm guessing I breathed in a lifetime's worth of pollutants in the short time I was there. Yum!

FWIW, the green-lit sign here was a lie: traffic stopped dead not three minutes after we passed this sign. I'm guessing it's some kind of government policy to keep people happy, even if it has no remote connection to reality.

In that regard, it sounds shockingly like the mean streets of Montreal. Maybe we're more alike, after all.

Your turn: Your worst-ever traffic story is/was...?

2 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

some kind of government policy to keep people happy

We need some more of those, don't we?!
~

Catherine said...

Traffic's pretty bad in Christchurch just now, they are doing earthquake repairs on pretty much every road in the central city. So you can't avoid the roadworks even though alternatives are suggested, because the alternatives have roadworks too.
The vehicle repair places are creaming it because of all the cars with wrecked suspensions from the potholes and generally bumpy roads.