From the Readers

Traffic chaos rules the roads

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-21 08:18

Comment on "Road tragedies scream for ethics and rules" (China Daily, Sept 15)

I agree wholeheartedly with what Liu Shinan has written in his column. I live on a luxury hotel's compound with good services but little traffic control. Just hours before reading the article, my three small children and I were nearly plowed down by a car on the compound.

A dozen guards sit at the gates chatting while cars speed past impudently and go the wrong way on one-way roads. And though there is plenty of parking space on the compound, people park their cars on sidewalks, forcing pedestrians onto the motor lanes where apparently drivers have things to do that are more important than the small matter of injuring or even killing children.

But still, that's nothing compared to what awaits us outside the compound. Recently, I read that China's roads will have about 200 million cars by 2020. If rules against small but potentially deadly traffic violations are not enforced by then, chaos will rule the roads, and even sidewalks and compounds. At the very least, traffic will be so bad that no cars will be able to move on the road.

But on second thoughts, that may be a good thing.

Jenny Lin, via e-mail

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