A Short Letter Home

Cross with the light

One aspect we ex-pats joke about here in China is the traffic. To my American eyes, the driving here is very libertarian. The rules of the road are useful guidelines, but always seem to take second place to the cardinal law: Get where you want to go with minimal delay. In order to achieve that aim I've seen drivers pass other cars on the right, left, or whatever space seems available. I've seen cars driving on the "wrong" side of the road, barreling through red lights and have even seen a couple of drivers make a left hand turn using the cross street's right turn lane. The miracle of it all is that in my year and a bit here, I have yet to see one accident.... well, up until last weekend, that is.

On Sunday afternoon, Yau Neih and I were taking a bus ride. We recently noticed that the city had added a few bus routes in our section of town and we decided to investigate them. We had run a couple of errands and had ended up at the new grocery store in town. (We had to stock up on our chocolate cereal, don't you know.) We managed to catch a bus on one of the new routes and rode about town, intentionally taking the long way home. (The bus routes here are all circular.) We were riding through the north end of town, the bus driving along at a rather leisurely pace. The busses here don't adhere to a strict schedule or limit themselves to specific bus stops, so the drivers usually gauge their speed by how much room they have in their bus. An empty bus promises for a slower ride as the driver keeps a lookout for new fares.

At this point both Yau Neih and I were idly looking out the side windows, watching the people, shops or new construction that passed by. Suddenly the driver slammed on his brakes. I tried to maintain my balance but tumbled forward, bumping into a lady seated in front of us across the aisle. As I fell I could hear the crunch of an accident. My first thought was to apologize to the lady I hit, and to ask if she was okay. Of course, in such an emergency situation, my limited Chinese vocabulary was quite lost in the recesses of my brain. I ended up just picking myself up and dusting myself off. She seemed to be unharmed, so I just left it at that. She was, of course, excited about the whole accident. Turning my attention to that, I looked out the front window, but couldn't see anything. From the sound of crunching metal, I was expecting to see a car or something. The driver had immediately left the bus and the passengers were following suit. We followed along and as we got closer to the front, I could see the driver kneeling over someone else, just a few feet in front of the bus.

As we stepped out into the road we could finally see what happened. A bicycle sat crumpled under the bus' front wheel. About six feet in front of the bus, the driver was trying to pick up the rider, a boy about eight or nine years old. That was contrary to what I had learned in high school first aid, but there was no way I could have communicated that. It was one of those situations where I just had to sit back and trust other people to know what they were doing. The injured boy was crying, but didn't seem to be screaming in agony or anything. There were a few other kids hanging around--I'm guessing friends of the injured boy. A lady appeared to be scolding them. Whether she was lecturing them on traffic safety or telling them to run home and get help, I don't know. Once the driver had picked up a boy, folks started trying to flag down a passing car. It took a few minutes until an empty taxi passed by. In that space of time, a man in a wheelchair came over, who at first impression seemed to be related to the boy. However, once we flagged down the taxi, that man stayed behind while the driver climbed in with the boy and the taxi drove off. At this point Yau Neih and I figured that we really couldn't do anything to help. So I put our bus fare on the driver's seat and we walked home. We figured if we were required to fill out any witness forms or something, it would have been pretty easy for the police to find us.

Once we got home, we peeked into one of our "foreigner's guides". It had a little section on accidents and we found out that what we had witnessed was pretty much standard operating procedure. In the case of an injury accident, the driver at fault will usually accompany the injured party to the hospital. At that point the driver would probably have to arrange to settle up accounts, making arrangements to pay the costs involved. (And while to American thinking, the boy might have been at fault, here the responsibility falls on the driver of larger vehicle.) So our bus route research was cut short by an experience of a different kind.

Ironically, the bus driver was driving quite safely, even by American standards. There was no libertarian driving involved. Like I said, this is the first accident I have witnessed here. Hopefully it will be the last.

posted by John @ 8:16 PM