Obsessed with Cars

Being stuck in traffic bothers me in many levels. Idling is not good for the car, waste of gas, bad for the environment and most of all, I just hate siting still! I can't imagine being stuck in traffic for 9 house, let alone 9 days. That is exactly what happened in Beijing last summer. The jam was 62 miles long!

I have always been frustrated with why the Chinese government is not doing more to curb the country's appetite for cars. But as I learn from my family and friends in China, it is actually pretty hard and expensive to own a car in China by western standards.

1. Training is expensive and testing is rigorous (and ridiculous at times). To get a license potential drivers must have at least 58 hours of instruction in a certified course that costs around $300 to $500, a considerable sum in China. The actual testing includes the written exam, a technical course and two driving tests. Some jurisdiction even require potential drivers to pass a medical check up. Being too short, color-blind, suffer for nervousness or high blood-pressure, have trouble jumping have been routinely been the reasons people got denied the privilege to drive. Some are rejected because their thumb is not the right shape, or they are missing a finger or they can’t hear well in one ear.
   
2. Registration fee is expensive. Fees doubled between 2000 to 2005 to $4,600 per vehicle that is more than twice the city’s average per capita income.
   
3. license plate is very hard to come by. Only limited number of them are issued every year. In some cases, a highly desirable license plate (i.e. the ones with a lot of "8" in them) is auctioned off at a higher price than the car itself. You think your local DMV is bad, the people of Chinese might have wait for months to get a license plate.
   
4. Car is pretty expensive to purchase in China. A middle of the road car like Toyota Corolla can cost up to 200,000 RMB (approx: $30,700 CAD). That is almost double than what they sell for in Canada.
5. In major cities, highways access alternates everyday depending on the last digit of your license plate number. There are also rules against driving on highways if you have an out of province license plate. For example, a Jiangsu plated car may not drive on Shanghai highways during weekdays from 9 to 5.
6. Parking is a bitch. Most Chinese cities were built for bicycles not automobiles. Unlike American cities, Chinese cities have virtually no parking spaces and no parking garages. Most neighborhood streets and alleys are barely wide enough for one car. Check out the video of this woman and her ingenious way of solving this headache. Click here.
   

Despite these road blocks (and the state of the global economy), cars are still selling like hot cakes. The Chinese purchased 14 million cars, that is 4 million more than the Americans in the past year. Why? I think China is making up for lost times. Less than 20 years ago, the Chinese way of life is own by the state. The company they worked for belonged to the state. The apartment they lived in was provided by the state owned company they worked for. Food ration stamp was also distributed by the state. Their kids went to state own schools. China had maybe a handful of private companies and owning a business meant you were not educated, lower class and you had no choice. Now the country is opened up, the people is buying everything that represents bountifulness, prosperity and self-expression. To many Chinese car is the ultimate expression in freedom.

Owning a car is still the dreams of millions of Chinese. Unfortunately, that means this dream will continue to contribute to even longer traffic jams...