TRYING to negotiate the traffic in Beijing is a terrifying experience for the uninitiated. Taxis pull out in front of buses, bicycles glide into the path of trucks, pedestrians step off footpaths looking the wrong way. Some Westerners and Beijing residents despair of this perceived in discipline.
"Many of these people are peasants, they have no idea how to behave in traffic," said a local driver in exasperation as a dozen people, including a street vendor pulling a cart load of potted plants, strolled in front of his car.
The police have been conducting a major road safety campaign for the last month, fining drivers who break traffic laws and issuing shrill commands to errant cyclists and 3,000 volunteers with red flags have been trying to hold back the pedestrian masses at intersections, with little success.
But after several weeks here, travelling around by foot, by bicycle and on four wheels, I have been impressed by the fact that there are amazingly few accidents. I have seen more nasty collisions in a similar period on River Road in Washington than on Chaoyang Road in Beijing, where the volume of traffic is immeasurably greater.
I think I've figured out why. On American streets there is abundant space, and drivers are lulled by excessive comfort and assumptions of discipline. Here, the roadway is so crowded you take immediately whatever openings become available if you don't, another vehicle will fill the space first. At the same time, you anticipate that someone will veer into your path every couple of seconds, and adjust your tactics and instincts accordingly.
An alert Beijing driver will foresee from way back, for example, that an approaching bicycle piled high with two sofas and an armchair is about to pull alongside a minibus taxi which has stopped to pick up a passenger, and force a water melon lorry into the path of a new Mercedes, which in turn will veer into the wrong lane only yards away.
All the road users involved will automatically toot their horns or ring their bells, but they will not lose their tempers, shake their fists, change their impassive express ions, or collide with anyone else (well, hardly ever).
The system works. It just involves a different psychology. And it is as good a way as any of coping with the traffic jams, an unwelcome side effect of China's economic boom.
Many Asian cities are experiencing gridlock as millions of new consumers enter the market far cars, and Beijing is no exception. In fact, Beijing authorities early this year banned small cars from entering the Chinese capital on alternative days according to their registration number, in an attempt to cut down on volume and pollution. But things will get worse before they get better.
The regulation is to be scrapped because of pressure from the Chinese auto plant which makes the cars. This is a defeat for those scientists in China who favour investing in mass transit systems like underground railways, rather than the car industry.
Environmentalists worry that the mass production of cars for China's 1.2 billion people will mean worse planetary pollution and global warming in the next century. All in all, there is little relief in sight for those (including me) who have to get in and out of town along Chaoyang Road every day.
It's no wonder the number of bicycles has increased in Beijing by some estimates from seven to nine million since the 1980s. It is the most efficient way of getting around. While the traffic snarls up, the riders of bicycles flow by at a steady pace. By car it used to take me an hour to get to my Chinese lesson through the morning rush hour. Now I take the bike and I'm there in 30 minutes.