5 ms·
> It says that cars often come onto the pavement, which is a busy channel for pedestrians who might not be paying attention to their surroundings. Uh, what? Ca
by tree_of_item 8y ago
> It says that cars often come onto the pavement, which is a busy channel for pedestrians who might not be paying attention to their surroundings.
Uh, what? Cars come on to the...pavement? Do they mean the sidewalk? How is this supposed to work?
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoThis is how things are done in China. Cars often come onto the sidewalk because all the parking spots on the street are taken.
- purple-again 8y agoInteresting, my guess as to why this doesn’t fly is the US is a mix of aggressive tow truck companies that prowl every downtown looking for cars to tow as they often get paid per car and the frequency of police that are all too happy to slap a $100-$300 fine on your windshield to help meet their monthly quota. Either the reality of these two things or the successful perception of them is what would keep me from just rolling up on a sidewalk because I couldn’t find parking. Does China not have fines and/or towing providing individual incentive to behave?
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoChina doesn’t really have rule of law like the west does. Unless they are doing their once a year crackdown or it is a very important place, you won’t get a ticket or get towed. Some cities are worse than others. Shanghai has much more enforcement than a lesser tier city like Beijing.
- azernik 8y agoMost developing countries have a... loose notion of rule of law and following the rules. Even the ones with all-powerful dictatorships (China, Egypt), or relatively far along in their economic development/consolidation (Israel when I was growing up, Turkey). There's a sort of critical mass you need to get people to follow rules like this, since enforcing them against an uncooperative majority requires impractical amounts of policing resources, whereas once most people are following the rules it's easy to deter the smaller number of rule-breakers. Similar to the concept of "tax morale".
- yorwba 8y agoIn my corner of Shanghai there are also designated parking spots that can only be reached by driving onto the sidewalk first. There is usually enough space for a car to drive past parked cars and pedestrians at the same time (those sidewalks are wide), but you still need to pay a bit of attention to avoid getting honked at.
- baybal2 8y agoChina has mechanical barriers on paid parking spots in some cities. Believe me or not, even they don't deter a surprising amount of people who don't mind scratching their paint and getting few dimples on the hull (and those drive expensive cars.)
- geomark 8y agoVery common in other countries, too. Particularly with motorcyles that drive on sidewalks to avoid street traffic or because it is inconvenient to make a legal turn onto a side rode, ala https://www.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20170127/c1_1188020_170127175135_620x413.jpg https://www.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20170127/c1_118802...
- TACIXAT 8y agoCars park on the sidewalk and people walk in the street. Makes me laugh everytime I see it. Found a picture on my phone. https://i.imgur.com/9BIjZmW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/9BIjZmW.jpg
- dasil003 8y agoPavement is what the sidewalk is called in British English.