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

[Topmanda]

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.

[bikerdoc]

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.

[Lao Jia Hou]

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

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

It is horrible; simply horrible.

[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. 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.

[felix]

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.

[braillce]

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.[...]

^ 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...

[euphonius]

...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.

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

[bikerdoc]

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.

[Nuhaus]

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

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."

[TB-Racing]

Be careful with scooters, foreigners told


By Winter Zha | 2012-11-7 | NEWSPAPER EDITION SHANGHAI DAILY
________________________________


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.