So you reckon you have a monster commute from hell on the way to work? Think again.
Those moms ferrying kids to school. Dad trying to bludgeon his way to work on the Ridge or from Mt Edgecombe to town, don’t mutter and curse and pull what’s left of your hair out.
Ok, so you’re stuck in the traffic for 40 minutes and going nowhere slowly, your blood pressure’s starting to rocket, little Johnnie’s having a hissy fit in the back of the Volvo, but it’s not that bad . . . really. Things could be worse.
A few weeks ago The Ridge Online reported on the mother of all traffic jams, an absolute whopper that had brought traffic to a standstill in China. These guys weren’t just getting to work late, they weren’t getting there at all.
Well that awful 100km long jam that was going for at least 10 days has reared its ugly head again. The Beijing-Tibet Expressway is a disaster, thousands of truckers are stranded and a 100km trip is taking motorists four days.
At one stage, even China’s ultra-conservative state broadcaster CCTV declared last week that the highway had morphed into one huge “parking lot.” It takes a lot for these guys to admit to inefficiency. Embarrassing stuff for the uber-organised red regime.
It’s estimated that about 10 000 trucks, almost all of them carrying coal, came to a standstill. One enterprising photographer even managed to snap a truck driver fast asleep under a truck.
What’s causing this logistical nightmare? you might ask. Construction projects that have narrowed traffic lanes and China’s ever-growing appetite for coal seem to be the main culprits. So much for that famed Chinese organisational excellence. So much for the world moving to green energy. Coal, coal and more coal, it sounds like a Greenpeace demonstration waiting to happen.
In entrepreneurial fashion, a number of vendors have been seen popping out of the woodwork, leaping at the opportunity to sell bored motorists a snack or cooling beverage. Truckers were seen having a quick lie down at the roadside or engaging in a game of cards to while away the time.
So if you’re out there every day on the Ridge, sitting in traffic for hours, my advice to you would be to pop on the radio, sit back and get there as fast as possible, bearing in mind the situation . . . life could be a whole lot worse, you could have been born in China . . . and spend your days driving the road to hell.
2 Comments
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