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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: What's your reaction to this?....Is it empowering, or just silly and dangerous?
I'm a cyclist in China and my frustration levels are starting to get the better of me.
So, I'm toying with a plan to grab back some control over what's being dished up to me every day.
How about this.....the next time a car illegally pulls out in front of me (that'll be this afternoon, no doubt..) ; with no regard whatever for law, respect or intelligence; rather than hitting the skids and swerving dangerously, I simply ride into it, T-bone style, somersaulting over the top and landing on the other side before standing wide astride and glaring defiantly.
I can really see myself doing it now...
The love Chinese people have for their vehicles far outweighs anything they feel for fellow humans so it'll be like hitting them where it really hurts. They break the law, and, cop the damage!
Har!!!
Good idea?
Ha! I know someone who did exactly that (unintentionally). The driver wanted compensation from him (while he was flat on his back on the sidewalk) for damaging his car. It really depends on how big you are (and how many people are with the driver at the time). I kicked in an Audi's rear door after the b*stard ran a red light. He stopped at the other side of the intersection, got out, looked at the caved-in door then looked at me. He was alone, I was twice his size. Got in the car and drove away.
CARLGODWIN1983:
Ha. I guess he cleverly accepted a dent in his car rather than a dent to his body and ego if he was to take you on.
Sinobear:
Actually, it was only because he came with centimeters of running me over that I instinctively kicked the car as it was passing (caved in the rear passenger door). I wouldn't advise this as a normal course of action, though. You never know who might be in the car or what they're capable of (physically or guanxi-wise),
I have been looking for someone to do that to myself, I am desperate to either kick someones car in or grab them and shake the living shit out of them.
Alas, people seem to be avoiding me. (I am rather large, with a shaved head and big beard)
why have a aneurysm over road rage . this is China and nobody cares about road law. besides do you really want risk the Chinese health services?
Having spent a lot of time on bikes, and having had a crash that cost me a week of not moving in a hospital bed, I'd say it's a bad idea.
Being a pedestrian in China I've often thought "If only I had brought a baseball bat....<something something> windshield" However. A more useable and easier to carry idea sprung into my head this morning as a Range Rover raced past me while I was playing frogger. It was a woman driving, talking on her phone, and the part of her visible to people on the outside of the car, she was dressed like a princess. As no one knows their cars are capable of filtering the crap from the air, the drivers side window was down.
Here is what I wish I had. A squirt-gun loaded with a red liquid that has the smell of rotten fish.
Bad idea, bro. You might get hurt (or worse) if the timing is off. And in a traffic dispute, especially if the cops rock up, it will always be your fault if you are "foreign" and if you live through the "accident". You'll end up having to pay for any dent or scratch you provoke on the car. Don't be foolish.
Your defiant attitude is understandable, but impractical, to say the least. Dangerous at best. You could wind up in hospital. Don't be foolish.
I'm reminded of a friend who insisted that pedestrian zebra crossings in China were "safe zones" when the little green man signaled safe passage across a road. She refused to believe that drivers would not stop for her as she crossed the road with the green pedestrian light. Her attitude was: "Go ahead. I dare you. Hit me." Well, she finally got what she asked for - a hit and run that landed her in hospital with a broken leg, a broken hip, and a smashed face due to flipping over the roof of the car and skidding on her face for about 10 meters. She is no longer in China. Went home to Cali for medical care and reconstructive plastic surgery to put her nose back in its proper place.
No sense in trying to prove a point. Don't be foolish.
royceH:
Yeah Red, I know. In fact I've done the pedestrian crossing thing myself.
But it's just so damn frustrating!
I mean, they have these laws...and policeman standing on most street corners...and no bastard gives a toss.
What the hell is a Chinese police person's function anyway??
People advising you not to do it are right. As some say, you might get hurt and China won't change. I know how you feel, I sometimes get back home full of adrenalin feeling as if I just crossed a battlefield and the sound of mortars still in my ears.
For this moment I'd suggest you learn how to ignore everything behind you. If a car pulls up in front of you, avoid it and leave it to the ones behind you to avoid you. If you can manage to get in front of the car by speeding up a little, you'll force him to brake. Sounds crazy but it works. According to Chinese law, the driver is responsible if he hits you with his front, while you might be responsible if you don't brake in time and hit him from the side. But the story Red Fox tells us still is something that could happen to you or me...
mArtiAn:
I've been hit with the front of someone's car twice; neither time did they give even an inkling of awareness that they were in the wrong, even though both times I was in the logical position (by British law at least) of having right of way. I think i'm finally beginning (after only EIGHT YEARS) to be able to laugh off numbskull drivers. The serenity to accept the things I cannot change is how AA puts it.
Sounds like a bad idea to me, though I understand your frustrations; as a courier I went over a bonnet and it's not a course of action i'd take deliberately as a means of seeking revenge. I used to just boot the car or (on one occasion) knock its wing-mirror off. I'm thinking of getting an air-horn and a fog-lamp fitted to my bike, but mine's an electric bike so i'm a step up the pecking order from you, things aren't quite so dangerous. I think the Chinese swerve to avoid bicycles about as much as they swerve to avoid piles of leaves.
royceH:
But mate, the LAW....What about the bloody LAW???
You surely can't just procede out into the path of oncoming traffic. Can you?
Gee they're ignorant, arrogant, incompetent bastard drivers.
Fair dinkum, what are the coppers' function! They oughta sack the bloody lot of em.
And then sack themselves!
Cheers.
Mate, I am 100% with you but like most people have said, the danger to yourself is not worth it and who knows how the law will react to the incident.
I have yet to see, in 3 years, a copper book anyone for breaking a road rule or driving like an imbecile. And the police themselves drive around with their candy lights flashing for just what reason is anybody's guess. Look at your watch when you see a police car in a hurry with lights flashing and that silly siren sounding. It's close to either lunch time or dinner time and they need to get home!!
Anyway the solution? On Taobao you can buy this air horn which attaches to your bike and mate, it makes a real honk of a noise. When a car beeps you.... you honk it back and no kidding, it's ripper loud. Cost is about 25RMB. If nothing else it helps you vent your frustrations in a more civilized yet sort of Chinese manner - horn warfare!!!
Stay cool, but I know it's hard!
Scandinavian:
the light on the roof is on for penile and facial building reasons.