Stuck in A Traffic Jam: Get a Motorbike and a Substitute Driver for Your Car

Imagine that you are driving your car to go to an airport to catch a flight and yet you are stuck in a traffic jam which surely causes you to miss the flight.

Similarly, if you are heading for an urgent business meeting but you are stuck in traffic jam.

It would be a wish for you to have someone to help you to get to the airport faster so that you will not miss the flight. However, if that someone can fetch you to the airport faster, what about your car which is still stuck in the traffic jam.

In Beijing, where drivers can get stuck in a traffic jam for hours or even days during an epic traffic jam, the services are really blooming. Just by contacting an agency using your handphone, someone will substitute you as the driver of the car while you are being whisked away using a motorcycle to the desired destination.

Enterprising locals see the opportunities to do business to help people to escape the traffic jam with a price.

I supposed that the business is really genuine since it will be very difficult to let some other people to drive your car and not to worry about your car being stolen or getting vandalized somewhere.

We are still fortunate in Malaysia since there will never be an incident to have that kind of epic traffic jam that can go on for several days. The traffic jam that we encountered usually can be cleared within several hours and usually travellers will adjust their timing by getting to the airport much earlier in order to avoid from missing flight.

Read HERE for some of the measures used in Beijing to reduce traffic jam in the cities.

Another Approach to Reduce Traffic Jam in Megacities

Daily gridlocks in megacities such as Beijing have worsened recently. There are several measures being taken by authorities to help alleviating traffic congestion in the cities. The traffic congestion in the city causes severe air pollution. During the Summer Olympics in 2008, hosted by Beijing, vehicles with odd or even number plates were banned to drive in Beijing on alternate days in order to reduce congestion and reducing air pollution in the cities.

Now, all cars are banned on the streets one day a week, based on their license plate number. However, some drivers evade the rules by purchasing a second vehicle.

According to news report, soon Beijing will start to sharply limit new vehicle registrations in an effort to reduce traffic jam in the city. The city will allow only 240,000 vehicles (which is about one- third of the vehicle registration this year) to be registered starting next year.

According to the report, Beijing now has 4.76 million vehicles as compared to 2.6 million in 2005. With the population of 17 million, it is expected that car ownership will reach 7 million in the year 2015 in case of a do nothing scenario.

Rainy Story

For the country with a lot of rain such as Malaysia might wanted to learn from China on how to prevent rains at certain location during significant outdoor events. The method is more effective than using "Bomoh Hujan" or rain shaman usually used by Malaysian to counter the rainy situations. Hopefully, rain will soon be back at the location otherwise dry spell will be prevalent causing haze and they need another dose of chemicals to attract more rains.

According to the news media, meteorologists dispatched eight planes to release rain dispersal chemicals and fired 241 rockets into incoming clouds to ensure a dry Beijing Olympics closing ceremony.