Driving in Shanghai: Traffic lights, big avenues and one-way streets?

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Originally Posted by Topmanda

That's it: what's your way???

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not going downtown Shanghai at all with big bikes, got Shanghai "A" plate on one bike but can't be bothered to squeeze through the madness...

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Originally Posted by chinabiker

225 km/h on a Chinese expwy is a suicide attempt and, besides a hefty fine, he should have lost all his licenses

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have done faster on Sunday morning runs with cars and bikes (with the help of radar detectors), c'mon - don't tell me you always obey the speed limit while in China.....
he lost his full (complete) Chinese driving license for two years (500RMB fine).

Expat scooter rider killed by taxi in Xuhui District


By Dong Zhen | 2012-10-11 | ONLINE EDITION SHANGHAI DAILY


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A foreigner was killed this morning when his scooter was hit by a taxi on downtown Wulumuqi Road, according to xinmin.cn.


The accident happened around 7:30am near intersection of Wulumuqi Road and Hengshan Road in Xuhui District. The victim was a man and his identity has not been disclosed.


Witnesses said he was riding a scooter when he was knocked off by the taxi.


One witness said he heard a big noise and then saw the foreigner lying on the sidewalk close to a Blue-Alliance taxi.


The man was still alive when paramedics arrived but emergency treatment failed to save his life.


The accident caused big congestion on the two roads during the morning rush hour.

it is quite shocking as it's a rare incident in Shanghai (a foreigner dying in a scooter crash).
Another article below:


Foreign man dies after motorcycle collides with taxi
Global Times | 2012-10-11 22:45:06
By Chen Xiaoru
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A foreign man was killed in a traffic accident during rush hour Thursday morning at the intersection of Wulumuqi Road South and Hengshan Road in Xuhui district, according to Shanghai Television Station.

The man was riding a motorcycle along Wulumuqi Road South around 7:30 am when he collided with a taxi as it made a left turn onto Wulumuqi Road South from Hengshan Road.

Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene, according to a Shanghai Television Station report.

He was not carrying any identification, according to the police.

Police had not identified the man as of Thursday evening, said Tao Jiong, an officer with Xuhui district police. They did not know if he had run a red light or if he had been drinking before the accident.

A witness who posted a picture of the scene on his microblog said that the man looked young and was wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

"I saw the foreign man lying on the ground as I stepped out of my home. He was not moving and was covered with thick blood below his neck. His motorcycle was leaking fuel everywhere," he told the Global Times.

The witness said that the man's body was lying on the ground about five meters behind the taxi. The front end of the motorcycle was seriously damaged.

The accident disrupted traffic on Hengshan Road in the morning, according to a report on the local news website xinmin.cn.

Another witness said that the man's body was taken away in a hearse.

...
Wearing T-shirt and jeans and...no mention of the helmet...my guess: none. So many of us foreigners driving scooters in Shanghai downtown up to 80km/h, wearing flip-flops and bermuda shorts. Personaly, after riding here for 6 years here, is that about 90% of them don't go for the helmet and unfortunately I use to be part of this stats for a loooooong time.

Expat killed in accident identified as French


By Dong Zhen | 2012-10-12 | ONLINE EDITION SHANGHAI DAILY
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THE foreigner killed in a car crash yesterday morning in downtown city is now identified by police as a 33-year-old French resident in Shanghai with three children.


Local media reported today that early police investigation showed he moved to work in Shanghai years ago with his wife and children.


Police suspected that the scooter he rode during the accident had a fake license, reported local media.


The accident happened about 7am yesterday morning at the intersection of Wulumuqi and Hengshan roads in Xuhui District. A witness said the scooter had run the red light and was then hit by a taxi.


Police had questioned the cabbie and the investigation is still under way.

Yesterday News on ICS, I'm warning you it's not for the faint of heart:

http://shanghai.kankanews.com/kuaiba.../1599812.shtml

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Originally Posted by SabineHartmann

are you crazy guys?
what are you discussing? I am not the most law abbiding women on earth, but that tops it.
I stop at every red light, drive on the correct lane, more or less obey the speed limits (+/- 10%)

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Originally Posted by Graham

You are crazy not to stop at traffic lights.
Just stop, stop, too much risk with other drivers just not seeing you.

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Originally Posted by Topmanda

If you make sure that there's no one coming from both sides, I don't see the problem.

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Originally Posted by ChinaV

I blow through as many lights as I can.

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Originally Posted by Topmanda

OK, here's my driving way in Shanghai:
- I often run through red light if it's safe (means arriving to a complete stop, look on both sides to check for potential incoming cars/scooters before going through), unless it's big crossroad.

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Originally Posted by Topmanda

Yesterday News on ICS, I'm warning you it's not for the faint of heart:
http://shanghai.kankanews.com/kuaiba.../1599812.shtml

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Still sure you run red lights in the future?

Sure, because it's how you run them! Running a red light after making sure it's safe is a whole different thing than running them Chinese E-biker style (with very bad or no brakes)!

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Originally Posted by 998S

Still sure you run red lights in the future?

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Probably, depends on how much I've had to drink.

Cheers!
ChinaV

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Originally Posted by ChinaV

Probably, depends on how much I've had to drink.

Cheers!
ChinaV

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:lol8::lol8::lol8::lol8:

One thing driving in Shanghai taught me is that you cannot take anything for granted. Even if it's a green light I still slow down. In fact, when I was doing my motorcycle safety course in Canada I got into trouble with my instructors for doing this. I have had two major accidents in China since I started riding, both at intersections, both involving red Ebikes, both times avoidable if I had slowed down more. Also, both time my helmet and gear saved me from worse injury.

Let's compare what's comparable: we’re talking about a guy who’s driving a 150 cc scooter (I know that kind of Chinese scooter and they are cheap and shit) without helmet, fake plates, wearing a t-shirt who run a red light on wulumuqi road / hengshan road intersection during traffic time.

I’m familiar with that intersection and I wouldn’t have run it: I don’t do this systematically, I do it wisely and cautiously, meaning: on smaller street, by making a full stop, wait for good visibility on both sides and then go if fully safe (no cars): I ain’t gonna cross an important traffic road like hengshan road/huai hai road/Beijing xi road at 7.30AM. Hell no, I even slow down at every (and I mean every) green light cuz I know that there is a lot of dumb fucks here who respect nothing, not even common sense.

Plus, there’s a difference between a motorbike driver who ride full gear and a scooter driver with shit brakes that usually enjoy the wind in his hair while riding up to 50km/h.

I feel sorry for him, sorry for the family, and I will unconsciously be more cautious toward the circulation in the future days, but I’m not gonna change the way I drive because of this incident.

For your information there’s an average of 6 people being killed every day on 2 wheels here in Shanghai which is about 0.01% of the total population of the city. Are people going to start wearing helmet while driving scooters? I don’t think so. It’s a question of law enforcement and level of awareness and at the moment none of these 2 applies here.

:sad:
RIP
Condolences to wife and his children, who have lost a husband, father and provider.
But there for the grace of God go I, and likely many of those of us reading this website.

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Originally Posted by bikerdoc

:sad: Condolences to wife and his children, who have lost a husband, father and provider.

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Yes, thank you bikerdoc. Deepest sympathies to the survivors. A tragic, terrible accident that has forever broken a family.

It is horrible; simply horrible.

Hengshan lu is an auto only road, so cars tend to go fast on it, especially at the last seconds of the green/yellow light when taxi drivers frequently racing through it. It is a big intersection but with poor visibility where the Hengshan lu cuting into Wulumuqi road at an angle and both streets heavily wooded. I go through that very busy intersection every night, which is one of those you simply don’t even think of running the red light, especially on a 2 wheels.

While it’s a horrible accident, we still must question the sanity of that biker’s action. With zero protection on a 2 wheels running the red light at that particular intersection, it is simply begging for it.

I feel very sad for the family, what a horrible thing to go through.

Milton is spot on, that intersection is pretty treacherous and i saw a few accidents there before, though never this bad. It's one of those intersections where i'd always stop for the light, even if it looks safe.

I do, however, lie on the same side as those who say they run lights. It can be done safely using common sense.

This article is making me rethink my "ebike = no need for a helmet" policy though. My ebike does 65kph but for some reason in my head it feels like i don't need protective gear on an electric vehicle. I know it's not very smart.

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Originally Posted by milton

Hengshan lu is an auto only road, so cars tend to go fast on it, especially at the last seconds of the green/yellow light when taxi drivers frequently racing through it. It is a big intersection but with poor visibility where the Hengshan lu cuting into Wulumuqi road at an angle and both streets heavily wooded.[...]

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^ This ^

I live 2 blocs away.

Crossing Hengshan on Wulumuqi can be suicidal, even if your own light is green.

Going up north like the poor guy did, visibility to the left is about zero.

Not the best place to run a red light.

Still, only one witness says he ran the red light, one day I crashed I heard bystanders saying they had seen many things that I hadn't, while my angle of view on the crash was quite "convenient"...

I'll trust the witness when I see the video...

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Originally Posted by felix

...This article is making me rethink my "ebike = no need for a helmet" policy though. My ebike does 65kph but for some reason in my head it feels like i don't need protective gear on an electric vehicle. I know it's not very smart.

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Dear Felix,

Almost exactly two years ago, on American Thanksgiving day while cycling home from seeing an orthopedist about my shattered collarbone, I was taken down by a Shanghai motorcyclist who had just installed pogies that made his bike about 3cm wider on each side. He clipped my left bar, and down I went in a narrow chute of a bicycle lane up in Hongkou. I had no warning, was traveling fast, probably north of 30kph, and went down hard. The left side of my unprotected head hit the stone curb. I probably wasn't out more than 15 seconds, and amazingly the guy actually stopped and called for help, but it was an experience I never want to repeat. Being unconscious seriously sucks, and is not something that should be associated with bicycling or motorcycling.

In retrospect, I did know he was approaching behind, as he blew his horn. The lane was narrow so it was hard to know if he was going to pass on my left or my right, so I slowly eased right to give way. No middle fingers. No attitude. Just a gradual shift to my right to give way. And as he blew through he clipped my left bar. Avoidable? Really hard to say, but probably not unless we assume we always should take exaggerated measures to avoid hazards.

Fortunately, I fell on my right and didn't refracture my plated left clavicle. But the trip to the hospital, the x-rays and CAT scan, please, never again. So I've not ridden even a bicycle without a helmet ever since, not to mention a motorbike or scooter.

Yeah, if it's only us in control of our fate on the bike, the risks are more manageable. But it's a zoo out there.

cheers

I decided to reserve my decision on just who blew through the red light. There are so many possibilities, and witness testimony can be unreliable even at the best of times in ideal circumstances, so scratch any of that for the incident PRC. There would likely be CCTV footage, so if that is made available then one will most likely be able to deduce from traffic movements etc just what was happening at the time of the unfortunate incident. It may very well have been that the rider approached the intersection with speed, saw the light phase about to change, got the amber/orange/yellow light, sped up, misjudged it, hit the line on the red but was committed and went on through. The taxi driver meanwhile pre-empting the phase change hit the gas peddle on or about the green light to get a jump on the traffic queue, and the two sets of circumstances collided.

That's not to say that the situation could be very different, and from what I have observed after two days riding my 650 Burgy around SH that all manner of two wheelers have complete disregard for the traffic signals in a majority of the intersections where there are no traffic assistants in place to try to keep some semblance to the traffic chaos. Notwithstanding that many taxi drivers also violate lane "rules" as they try to deal with the traffic volume and madness, and endeavour to 'eek' out a living.

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Originally Posted by braillce

I'll trust the witness when I see the video...

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I don't think those will be released any time soon and I very much wonder who was at fault in this.

I am fully with Euphonious on helmets. Wear them, tell your friends to wear them, buy them for your stubborn family members who claim they have been riding bikes for years without.

"Where's your helmet dude? You forgot it? What a shame, let's go get it."

Be careful with scooters, foreigners told


By Winter Zha | 2012-11-7 | NEWSPAPER EDITION SHANGHAI DAILY
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CITY traffic police are reminding foreigners, especially students, to be careful while riding their two-wheelers and ensure that the scooters and mopeds they use are safe and licensed.


The warning comes after a foreign student on a scooter was injured in a collision with another rider in Yangpu District on Monday.


Police said it's quite common to see the students riding the scooters, usually without a license plate, in Yangpu which is home to several universities.


The district police declined to disclose details about the injured foreign student, saying the investigation is ongoing.


Both riders suffered slight injuries in the Monday accident, police said, adding the scooter had no plate.


"Many foreign students like to buy the scooters and drive them fast," said Li Bin, a squad leader with Yangpu traffic police. "It's very dangerous."


So far police have reported about 10 cases of such traffic violations involving foreign students riding scooters, which led to several accidents.


The unlicensed vehicles were confiscated by police.


Li said some of the scooters, which are essentially low-power mopeds and therefore don't require a license, have been modified to be more powerful and therefore fail to pass police checks.


Traffic police said they had to go to the school campuses to educate the students and caution them against dangerous driving.


The incidents of drag racing, which had caused many sleepless nights for neighboring households, have since seen a decrease, police said.


However, foreigners seem quite used to not having a motorcycle plate.


"No one told me that you need a license plate for a scooter," Kim Joe-nam, a South Korea student at a local university, told Shanghai Daily. He had his scooter's structure refitted but did not change the engine. He was once caught by traffic police and fined 200 yuan (US$32) because of the unlicensed vehicle.


The city now has more than 13 million mopeds, scooters and motorcycles.

ho hum, move along then, nothing to see here...

...of course as things are the powers that be take no responsibility in the slightest that there is no one place to get up to date accurate information and all the arduous processes needed to complete the aforementioned requirements etc. To say nothing of the availability of plates and how one gets hold of them.. even asking a traffic police orificer will likely return variable results much like some countries ballot boxes post election day...

my tuppence
i live downtown,as downtown as you can get. no bikes allowed on any road to my apartment. but a cop lives here with a huA licence and we regularly chat. he told me about a card you get.
so my point. if you want to you can go to your local district traffic police station and ask for a special licence which they will fill out giving you special permission to drive on certain roads.
now i don't work(don't need to) , i live in shanghai, so i used my gf's work address and made a route around to it using the roads i want. great thing is he just kept writing roads down till the card ran out of room..... no questions. and. no time restrictions. no day restrictions or usage. get stopped. 'im on my way to work.' (at 4 in the morning hahaha). greatest bit about it is. the road you travel may be longer than the the bit you use. and the card gives you ability to drive on it all. so i use a small 1000meter section of a road , yet i can now legally drive on any bit of it......also if you live in an area closed to bikes you can still legal use them.

now bits you can't. i found one hard and fast rule.... if you are on a road your not supposed to be..and you approach traffic or traffic light.... simply DO NOT GO TO THE FRONT AND SIT LIKE A LEMON WITH A DIMBASS GRIN ON YOUR BOAT RACE LOOKING AT THE COP. he will come to you he will fine you... just sit back a bit and watch , maybe 4-5 cars away. now when you get moving, just go. and they NEVER bother you. they to busy or lasy. so keep moving keep away and keep your licence.
i will post a pic of the licence if any one wants , or ill send info on other stuff. but its got my addy on it so not gonna stick it public .
hope this helps

Amazingly, the red-light-running rider walked away from it. No explanation for why it explodes like that.





cheers

Incredible, seems he does not even attempt to stop.
On the blast, looks like an off road bike with most likely a plastic tank.
Spilled fuel and hot engine don't go together, as it clearly shows.

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Originally Posted by 998S

Incredible, seems he does not even attempt to stop.

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I'm guessing his attention was elsewhere ...

http://i50.tinypic.com/2i1ctz.jpg

And yes, truly amazing he walked away! Some days are lucky days.

What's wrong with hand signals now?

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Originally Posted by euphonius

[...] Yeah, if it's only us in control of our fate on the bike, the risks are more manageable. But it's a zoo out there.

cheers

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Even if it was just us in control...

What looks like a crazy stupid crash can actually happen to anyone, depending on how much one's got in his head that day.

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Originally Posted by braillce

What's wrong with hand signals now?

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Nothing is wrong with hand signals ... nor is there anything wrong with light-hearted humour.

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Originally Posted by Lao Jia Hou

nor is there anything wrong with light-hearted humour.

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Yeah, you better be careful what you say on this forum recently ...
Several ppl. suffering from_____how does TB say that?_____"PMS (Parked Motorcycle Syndrome)".

U got me wrong.

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Originally Posted by Lao Jia Hou

Nothing is wrong with hand signals... Nor is there anything wrong with light-hearted humour.

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I only meant nothing's wrong with hand signals. I didn't mean to have a tone, nor to ruin your light-hearted spirit, and I'm sorry if I did.

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Originally Posted by 998S

Yeah, you better be careful what you say on this forum recently ...
Several ppl. suffering from_____how does TB say that?_____"PMS (Parked Motorcycle Syndrome)".

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I replied politely when Guyfawkes posted racist comments and shared his intention to attack a Chinese couple with knuckes & knife cause they looked like bike thieves.

I'm not gonna go mental over a hand signal joke. If it did read offensive to u, it wasn't meant to. I'm sorry.

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To anyone & for Christ sake's,

If u felt offended by the sentence:"What's wrong with hand signals now?" and seek an apology, please PM me and I'll send u a private apology till everyone is cool.

If that is not enough and you still got the shakes, just hop on ur bike and u should be all right.

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Originally Posted by braillce

U got me wrong.

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Sorry about that - my bad - I need a good ride!

BTW, to set the record straight (although a few MCM members already know this). I confess that I own a Harley (actually, I somehow managed to buy a second). I also confess that I own black leathers & a black half helmet. And I also confess that my leathers have lots of HOG, HD and skull patches & pins on them (I even have a wallet with a belt chain!). And yup, I sometimes dress and act the pirate part. But, more than anything, I enjoy laughing at my ridiculous costume on top of an overweight frame (the bike, of course) ... it is all quite silly, to be honest. But I like it every now and then.

Then again, I also ride a painfully old & junky farmer Honda (125cc on a good day) with my farmer costume (one of those green army coats I bought to fight off the Harbin winters). Also lots of fun when I need to visit one of the jumbled markets on the outskirts of Beijing ... and I fit right in with the crowd, as I always have a smoke hanging from my lips (with its ash carefully kept in place - an amazing riding skill, perfected after years in China, of which I am proud of).

Some call me the Imelda Marcos of Beijing, but with bikes/costumes instead of shoes. :lol8:

OK, we all need a group hug ... but I ain't gunna be the guy in the middle. I do have a few basic standards.