Driving an Accordian

I believe I have discovered a reason for the high incidence of tailgating accidents in Hong Kong.

Many drivers do not look far down the road, in fact they rarely look beyond the vehicle ahead. This leads to a lack of feel for the ebb and flow of traffic and certainly provides little time to anticipate a sudden change.

Perhaps the idea of forward scanning is ingrained in we Canadians. When you grow up in a country where the roads are icy at least six months of the year, you learn to leave lots of space, although not everyone gets the concept, to be sure. Some folks like to hug your rear bumper and it's annoying as Hell. Hey pal, just because you like to tailgate doesn't mean my car deserves to be wrecked should I have to stop quickly.

So when I'm in the back of a Hong Kong taxi and can see that three cars ahead someone is waiting to turn, I grow concerned when the driver keeps barreling forward at high speed, clearly oblivious that the drivers in front are about to hit the brakes (it is then that my right foot involuntarily goes for the imaginary brake pedal), and almost all of them are also far too close to one another.

This is why Hong Kong has accidents involving not one or two vehicles, but chains of cars: Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! In all my years here I can't recall many traffic accidents such as t-bones or fender-benders at intersections, a more common collision location in Canada, which has a lot to do with the layout of city streets, people running the lights, and again, icy roads.

This is yet one more reason I've never bothered to get a car.

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