Mille Bornes – pronounced ‘Meel Born’, is a French card game that simulates driving. Sounds strange, I know, but it is a very cleverly crafted game in which you must ‘drive’ 1,000km (the meaning of Mille Bornes), and protect yourself against road hazards, speed limits or that crazy fool who insists on driving 200km/hr regardless of road conditions. The first to attain 1,000km wins.
I know I’ve told you about the terrible traffic conditions here and I’ve been trying for some time to figure out a way to graphically paint that picture for you. I think, using Mille Bornes as an example – explaining traffic as I would explain the game might be effective. As I sense this might be an unduly long post, I think I’ll write it in two parts: First, we’ll go over the game components: what you might see on the road. I’ll rank them in order of horsepower.
Dogs: I am aware that dogs are not a conveyance but the idea is to communicate everything that vies for space on the road and dogs, singly or in packs can be found trotting down the road and fearlessly weaving through traffic. All vehicles brake for dogs in China. I do not know to whom these dogs might belong to as I’ve yet to see a dog with a collar on, but they do impede traffic, and they should be a part of the ‘game’ – just like the Mille Bornes card that has a snail on it.
People: I accord pedestrians a medal of bravery (or foolhardiness) for the way they mingle with their powered counterparts. Whether they are walking along the side of the road or actually facing oncoming vehicles, people affect traffic flow. Some people pull a two-wheeled cart laden with coal, vegetables or buckets of seeds, others are relatively unencumbered and just want to get to the other side of the road, whether there is a car coming at them or not. Please: no jokes about the chicken crossing roads, there are definitely no (figurative) chickens here.
Two-cycle engine tractors: Many people still use these to transport all manner of goods and even passengers across town. Their maximum speed probably could not exceed 30k/hr but they also claim their share of the road, often to the ire of buses and trucks. It seems drivers of such tractors do not like to drive through mud puddles or over potholes, thus they seldom confine themselves to driving on the sides of the road, rather they claim the middle of the road.
Bikes/trikes: Bikes? In China? Well, OK, bikes are pretty much a given. Both bikes and trikes can be seen going down the road laden with just about anything from stupendously balanced loads of styrofoam to refrigerators. A nifty contraption is a bike with a sidecar to tote anything from building supplies to bottled water. Surprisingly enough, there are not that many human powered bikes. Most erstwhile bikers seem to prefer…
Scooters: These zippy little contraptions, either battery- or gasoline powered have no problems threading through traffic snarls and the riders of these cunning little conveyances act as though they are Dobermans in a Wienerdog world: they want as much of the road as possible… and they take it! Bikes, trikes and scooters can be seen laden with up to 4 people – sometimes the whole family just jumps on for the ride, the mothers keeping her hands over the kids’ mouths to keep the road dust out. No one wears a helmet.
Motorcycles: I’m being deliberately vague where these conveyances are concerned because it is not very often one sees ‘ye average’ motorcycle. To be sure they are ridden and do take up space on the road, but most often they have been modified to accommodate more than passenger – there is a type of caboose built onto it, or it has been turned into a service vehicle, complete with a bed that can haul… anything that needs hauling. Very ingenious.
POVs: Again, pretty much a given. China being the latest country to catch driving fever, POVs abound. All manner of POV, from high end SUV to modest little QQ, a Chinese economy car approximately the size of a SmartCar. Among POVs I’m going to include taxis because they fall approximately within the same range of horsepower as a privately owned car even though they actually deserve their own category.
Light Trucks: Rather an oxymoron, no? I cannot pick up a so-called light truck, nor can anyone I know. However, there is a distinction between these light trucks – 2 axles, hauling relatively light freight, and their tractor-trailor counterpart. They are in a different category of horsepower altogether.
Tractor-trailer: These are relevant for two reasons. One, because they deliver the much needed construction materials such as steel and pre-fab’ed concrete barriers, and two, because they tend to tie up traffic a lot, trying to negotiate these treacherous roads, as big as they are. You can see tractor trailers everywhere, chugging their way down the road or blocking it altogether.
Buses: Normally I would rank buses as having less horsepower than a tractor-trailer, but as these buses are usually loaded to the gills with people – even double decker buses, I have to conclude that they just might have more horsepower than a semi. That’s just my guess; I could be wrong.
These are the players in our little game of Mille Bornes; on the next post I will explain the rules, and how the game is actually played.
Get set to have fun! (or get horrified…)
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