This afternoon I was driving on a quiet street in Pudong when I suddenly encountered a traffic jam. At the public library drivers in the opposite lanes were crossing the double yellow line (=not allowed to cross) to get into the parking lot of the library, and by doing that blocking the traffic in the lanes on my side. Because the parking space was full, there was hardly any movement. When cars finally started moving the drivers who illegally crossed did not let our lanes go first, which would have solved the whole traffic jam in one minute, but instead they kept on blocking the road. Sadly, this is very normal in China, most drivers do not care about others at all and only think about themselves while in traffic (combined with their poor driving skills this explains 80% of all traffic jams).
When cars finally moved a little bit again, I pushed myself in between two cars that were trying to get into the library parking lot, so that my lane could start driving again. But the driver of the car immediately on the left of me apparently did not like the idea and touched my car with his car. He got angry and said he wanted to call the police. Did he maybe think I, as a foreigner, would be afraid of that and give him some money? He was the one who was breaking the traffic laws, so I took pictures of the situation and my wife called the police.
They were there within a few minutes. The guy found out quickly that he was the one who was wrong, and the police explained him that very clearly. Upon examination it turned out that I did not even have a scratch on my car, and only he had some damage. The guy was not so happy, and started to curse my wife, to which she of course reacted by telling him what she though of him – the guy was not so good at arguing as she is, and did not know how to react anymore. The police man told him to stop, making remarks about that it’s a hot day and we should stay calm. Then he told me and my wife that we could go, and he gave the guy a fine and 3 points on his driver’s license. I felt good, I hope the other driver will learn from this, although that’s probably idle hope.