Some drivers set on a collision course
It seems a collision is in the making in Beijing between taxicabs, so-called black cabs, ride-hailing cars and buses, for — as was the case in the touristfriendly Sanlitun-Soho area of the capital one recent weekend — Beijing buses find it increasingly difficult to pull up to an assigned and marked bus stop. On that day, and it is not unique to that particular time and place, ride-hailing cars, black cabs and authorized taxis parked nose to tail right in front of a bus stop outside a popular mall — blocking two lanes of traffic and an access road.
What can be done about such chaotic scenes?
The country has hundreds of millions of vehicles, as China Daily reported in May. The drivers want to get places and they have to park. However, downtown in busy areas, the drivers of black cabs, taxicabs and ride-hailing cars seem inclined to hinder their fellow road users by ignoring the rules of the road in their pursuit of passengers.
The police must apply the rule of law to these drivers. If they don’t, these scofflaws will continue to put pedestrians and other drivers at risk.
In the Western cities I’m familiar with, taxicabs and unlicensed cabs — sometimes known as gypsy cabs — likewise dominate the roadsides. In Manhattan, there are about 10,000 bright canary yellow taxis, give or take. But there are close to 50,000 Uber cars. And the number of unlicensed black cabs is about 40,000 in New York City, most of them in Manhattan.
In New York, parts of Los Angeles and areas of Florida, traffic will often come to a sudden halt because a car is blocking the traffic while the driver double parks or cuts across other vehicles to pick up a fare.
Beijing has a great many cars, but the traffic generally moves and people get where they’re going sooner or later. However, the way taxis, black cabs and ride-hailing cars are pushing the legal boundaries in Beijing, one can see that the city is not immune to the blight of these rule-breaking drivers and that their behavior is harming the order on the roads in busy downtown areas. Perhaps things will change when merchants, hotels, tourist concerns and government officials feel the pain and voice their disapproval. But in the meantime, I’ll continue to take the bus.
As I told my lovely wife Catherine, if a cab backs out of one of those illegal parking spots and into traffic, I’d much rather be on the bus that strikes it, rather than in the back seat. That’s something to bear in mind to bear in mind if you are thinking of taking one of these cars.