When someone mentions traffic jams one would automatically think Bangkok, Jakarta or Manila which have been well known for crazy traffic jams day in day out. China now has taken over that title. The city in particular is Beijing. In 2010 Beijing experienced a traffic jam so bad that it stretched over 100km long!!! Many people who were stuck in the traffic jams actually abandoned their cars and walked to rest stops. Enterprising Chinese traders started to sell food and drinks to the people in traffic jams, some even came up with the idea of delivering the cars for the car owners and offered them a ride to the city on the back of a moped!
Beijing currently has 4.5 million cars on the road, despite the city council introducing new regulations to control the number of cars on the road (by way of number scheduling), it has still failed to stop people buying new cars and driving in the congestion ridden city.
So for us who complain about how bad KL traffic jams are.. just be glad that you don't live in Beijing. Traffic jams in KL are getting bad and all hell breaks loose when it rains but nothing that we experience can beat Beijing. The traffic jams are bad regardless if it rains or snows. In such situations having a small electric moped makes a lot of sense.
Shanghai traffic is also getting very bad but still cannot match Beijing. Beijing city was never plan to have such large number of cars. The municipal government has been frantically trying to build middle and outer ring roads to divert and disperse traffic. Having a middle ring road that is over 200km long has helped a little but the problem still remains in the city centre stretching 15km outwards. This is one city I will not want to drive in.
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