Walking in Wuhan, parking and crazy car edition

This guy figured his car wouldn't fit in the space, so he just parked half on the sidewalk.  

Aside from the fact that this car is full on parked on the sidewalk (perfectly legit to do) it is the color of a purple Christmas ornament.

Last, but not least, the crazy Mini.  

I apologize for the short short post, but I'm still trying to get back in the groove.

DONG!

 

Last night as we were getting ready for bed we heard a loud "DONG!" and I said "that is the sound of some fool running into the pipe across the road!" We ran to the window and sure enough, there was a Niva smack dab in the middle of the pipe.
But wait, I have gotten ahead of myself. Yesterday morning I got up and looked out onto what could be called "confusion circle" and noticed that they had place a huge steel pipe across the road where the truck used to be. It looked pretty solid, and people did not seem to be trying to drive around it like the truck so I didn't think anything of it. Until last night. After the first dong we snuggled back down to bed, and then a few minutes later there was another even louder "DONG!" this time I didn't even get up. But it turns out that some poor fool in a Lada had hit the pipe and he was not as lucky as to be able to drive away. An ambulance was called, the police came, a crowd formed (all this is after midnight) and the poor driver was taken away. Now you might think, why did these poor souls run into the pipe. Well, here's the thing. The pipe is a dark copper color during the day, and at night is only a slightly darker black than the surrounding night. It is strung across an unlighted stretch of road. The pipe is layin in the road just after a curve in the road, so if you are speeding, the pipe is only visable for a few seconds before impact (to make matters worse, most people do speed up as they come around the curve since it is going uphill, and they want to keep their momentum). There is also no warning that there is a pipe ahead, no construction signs, no police cars, nothing. Even last night after two cars hit the pipe, and the police came to write a report, they still did not post a sign, or a car or anything. I did hear them yelling for a good ten minutes last night, and I asked about it this morning, but they were only trying to get people to move so the ambulance could get through. They didn't stay to warn other cars or perhaps set out some cones, nope, they just went home. *sigh* I need a life, I am finding this way too entertaining.

FUBAR revisited

This morning my hubby says "hey there's a huge pileup of cars waiting to drive on the sidewalk out here!" So I had to go check it out, and then I was stuck at the window for the next hour watching the clusterf*&k unravel. I know I get way too much pleasure out of this, but I couldn't help myself this morning. I just had to stand at the window with my camera and take some pictures. It was great! Ok, so you know how they are fixing the pipe up the road and the north bound lanes of our street are blocked off by a giant flatbed. Well I guess this morning they forgot to post a sign or block off the entrance to the north bound lanes from the gas station so the drivers, in their infinite wisdom, seeing the traffic in the south bound lanes (which both north and south bound traffic are sharing) thought to themselves, well I'll just go over here on this street which is all empty and has to be loads faster! Then they get to the truck. Well most people just hopped the curb, and drove through the narrow gap to get to where they could drive again. This worked pretty well, except that only one car can get through at a time so by the time 9:15 rolled about there were cars piled up four across ten deep down the street, each vying for their shot at the one car passageway over the sidewalk. Then, some guy going to the military complex across the street from us parks his car on the sidewalk in front of the one car passageway (I didn't see how this happened, and how he didn't notice the steady flow of cars trying to get through, but whatever) and a minibus gets stuck, can't go forward because of the parked car, can't go back because of the traffic jam of cars four across ten deep, and now everyone is stuck. Some guys in the middle of the line kept trying to get people to back up, but Azeris have an awesome sense of entitlement "why should I move for you, I've got every right to be here." Plus, cars kept piling up in the back.
Finally, someone gets the bright idea to move the truck. So about 15-20 Azeri guys get out of their cars, suits, pointed shoes and all, break into the truck, and start to push it out the way. Well they don't get to far, so they come back with boards and sticks to shove under the wheels and this time they finally get it moved about a foot so the minibus can make its way through and traffic can flow again. By the way, during all this I saw at least five or six cops standing around watching the mess, not getting involved because it's not their jurisdiction, I've also got a picture of a police mobile going through the one car passageway over the sidewalk. HA! Anyway, I took a bunch of photos, and I have to say that these are definitely worth more than my descriptions by far.

FUBAR!

Ok, so it's not a real FUBAR situation (if you don't know what FUBAR is ask around), but it is totally hilarious! Most of the time I hate living on one of the main streets of Baku. The honking horns and revving engines all times of the night is enough to drive anyone bonkers. BUT when it snows, or on days like today when they do something odd to the traffic patterns, the window onto the street is like a microcosm of the society as a whole.
Let me explain. I guess there is some pipe somewhere further up the road that is not doing so well, so they have ripped up the road to repair it. In order to do this they had to shut down one whole side of the street. Earlier today they came with a flatbed truck and placed it across the affected lanes and had some police guys blocking the way. Now in case you haven't lived in the developing world just because there's an obstacle and people are telling you you can't go this way doesn't mean that it necessarily applies to you. In fact, despite the HUGE truck blocking the way, and the sign and the rest of the traffic going the other way, about one car in ten tries to come down the street anyway. They drive up, drive past the sign, get to the huge truck and then have to turn around. The other drivers are either not paying attention or don't really care because there are often two or three cars trying to turn around at the same time.
Since this street is a major artery, they can't just close it off completely, so they have both directions of traffic going on the same side of the street. Which means on a four lane road you have three lanes going north and three lanes going south. (I'll wait while you think about that) Add to that one lane blocked off both ways for stopping mini-buses and parked cars and you have a street that is FUBAR.