Thursday, September 18, 2008

Buying Train Tickets. Accident!

I bought my train ticket for Nanjing this morning at the ticket office on Renmin Road here in Wuxi, China. There was a lineup and I had to wait twenty minutes before I could purchase the ticket. I don't know if this was the usual traffic or if it was busier due to the upcoming National Holiday. I used the minimal Chinese I needed to buy the ticket only having to write out "1900" for the clerk. My train, the D448, will leave tomorrow at 19:49.

I saw the immediate end result of accident as I drove, by scooter, to work this morning. One electric bike hit another it was trying to pass or maybe it was vice versa. I did see two bikes tumble on their side. The accident was all the more stupid because there were no other vehicles around at the instance of collision. The two electric bikes were hugging the right side of the road. I assume that the bike trying to pass was sideswiped because the rider of the bike being passed was daydreaming and suddenly staggered leftwards as Chinese bike riders are wont to do. Of course, the passing rider should have given a wider berth to the bike being passed but he had no mirrors. And in China, the rules of passing are not observed. You will often see vehicles being passed on the right: a dangerous maneuver but very common here.

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