In the game of Mille Bornes, the object is to be the first to drive 1,000 km. The practice of driving in China is much the same, except driving to your destination is the objective, not driving 1,000 km.
I realize that people usually set out with a destination in mind so that point might seem redundant, but not to this narrative. In China everyone sets out with the goal of being first to get to his or her destination, whether everyone has the same destination or not is a moot point. In order to be first, the driver of any given conveyance must cut other drivers off, take up as much of the road as possible, drive the wrong way down one way streets, and even drive into oncoming traffic if that will help them get where they’re going faster.
I do not know which city is being photographed in those pictures that accompany the occasional traffic write-ups the Western media presents of China, but I can assure you it cannot be China. The simple fact is that lane markings, even those that separate the road into two way traffic do not matter at all to the drivers here. There is no such thing as staying in one’s lane or on one’s side of the road. It is common, if you see an obstruction in your lane to swerve into the next lane over without so much as a blinker.
The game of Mille Bornes provides each player the opportunity for perpetual hazard protection; they are called ‘Coup Fourre’ (pronounced k-ew phew-ray) and they are denoted by a bold green stripe down the face of the card. The four Coup Fourre are: accident prevention, inpucturable tires, a bottomless gas tank and emergency vehicle status.
With emergency vehicle status, red lights and speed limits do not matter. In China, they don’t matter either. Drivers routinely ignore red lights in favor of cramming themselves through intersections, and there is no point to having speed limits if everyone has to send stock still because of traffic tie-ups.
The bottomless gas tank would be a very useful Coup Fourre on Chinese roads. It would prevent all of those cars from stalling out because they ran out of gas waiting for traffic to clear up, or all of the scooters to now have to be pushed down the road because the batteries have drained. Every Chinese driver should have this Coup Fourre in real life.
Impucturable tires should also be a must for Chinese drivers. With the roads the way they are, it is simply impossible to guarantee that a tire will not simply rupture, leaving a car stranded on the road and causing even more traffic delays. Although I have yet to see a flat tire be the cause of tying up traffic, I can imagine all of the tire damage that cars could sustain because of these terribly maintained roads. Perhaps it is because no one can drive fast that tires do not puncture like they would on a road where speeds higher than 10km/hr is attained.
In Mille Bornes your opponents plague you with road hazards: at any given time a player can impose a speed limit, give you a red light, give you a flat tire or cause you to run out of gas or have an accident. In China, that is never the case: Chinese drivers are very tolerant of each other’s driving. They do not yell at each other or curse that stupid so-and-so who is endangering an entire road full of people by his or her crazy driving… being as they all drive the same way. However, everyone makes use of their horn to demand priority (except for dogs and pedestrians, who have no horns), so no points are accorded for that.
I will mention one stupendously funny incident in which a bus passenger accused the bus driver of being a bad driver. It happened when the driver did not make the most of an opportunity to pass another vehicle. The bus driver instantly got very angry and shouted at the passenger that he should drive the bus if he felt more capable. If the passenger in question did not want to drive the bus he should just shut up, because bus drivers in Wuhan are actually excellent drivers, fully qualified to even fly F-14s. After that, the bus driver was very angry and his driving reflected it. The passenger, unable to ‘top’ the F-14 comment, left well enough alone.
I have to concur that the bus drivers in Wuhan are very skilled. I have yet to see a driver have an accident or even so much as nick another road occupant, even though their vehicle is overloaded and they are under pressure to convey passengers from one end of the city to the other safely. And over terrible roads, at that. Of special merit are the drivers of double-decker buses who have twice the passenger load.
As in Mille Bornes, eventually everyone arrives at his or her destination – except perhaps those meandering dogs. I don’t think they have the intellectual capability of actually selecting a destination, and if they did have that capability, they probably would also realize that taking to the roads is a very bad idea, indeed.
At the end of the game, how is it scored? If you arrive first, you get extra points. That is the goal of every single Chinese driver. Hence their atrocious manner of driving.
If you can do it without using a 200km/hr card, extra points are accorded. Every Chinese driver falls in that category too, as speeding is impossible. Dogs and pedestrians are exempt of this category; they would not be able to attain that speed anyway.
If you reach your destination with no Coup Fourre in your hand you win extra points too. No problem there, every Chinese driver plays every advantage they have behind the wheel each chance they get.
If you catch other drivers with point cards in their hand? Those points are deducted from that driver’s score. And such is also the case in China, where not getting to your destination on time is counted against you.
I realize this blog is supposed to be about life in China and the Chinese culture and I’ve just spent the last two entries explaining a French card game. But, if you look at it, we are part of a Global Village and now you not only know how to play a French card game, but also you know how to drive in China.
Rather clever, no?
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