How to Cross a Street in Wuhan

I was surfing and found this excellent post about how to cross the street in Wuhan. It really does hit the nail on the head. I haven’t been conditioned to cross the street like a local still and I’m in my second year. I live right across the street from my school so I cross the street every morning. A vehicle could be 150m down the road going about 50 km/h, I’ll stop  even though I know I can make it across in time if I walked briskly. I think I just hate hearing the horn go off.

Speaking of horns, I hate walking down Liufang, it’s “the village” just up the street from us. I hate it when I’m walking down the narrow streets and hear a van come down it while s/he’s blaring the horn to let you know that they’re there. It’s LOUD! Try standing at the bus stop and have a bus honk their horn 20m away. That’s even louder!

If there are others with me while crossing the street, I let them take the lead. I still hesitate when they decide to cross but I do my little freak-out skip across the street instead of the calm and collected prance of my neighbour.

I don’t think it’s a China-only thing. When I cross at a crosswalk in Toronto, I still don’t cross if there’s a car that looks like they’re still going 30 km/h and barely slowing down. I wait for them to come to a near stop before I walk out. I’d rather be safe than sorry. I can’t assume that they noticed the blinking crosswalk lights with all the distractions in cars.