Fiesty foreigner in Beijing

[imron]

Go here for a summary in Chinese of the whole story, by the guy who actually broke the story. There are conflicting opinions as to whether or not the driver was/wasn't in the wrong, especially because it didn't all happen on exactly the same spot on the bike lane (ie. several different altercations happened at different points along the lane). Some parts of the lane were ok for drivers, other parts weren't. There are also several other actions made by the driver that were clearly in violation of the law, because in a bike lane cars have to give way to other vehicles and can't try to make them move aside by honking horn etc - besides which horn honking is apparently forbidden inside the 4th ring road (not that you'd know it from living in Beijing!)

Also, if you read the other blog posts on the page regarding the incident, you will find out that according to the driver, the lady only stopped him, because she'd just been knocked down by another car, and so decided to take that out at the next car that came along. Not exactly unreasonable behaviour, considering that in the bike lanes where cars are allowed, they have to give way.

[Shadowdh]

because in a bike lane cars have to give way to other vehicles and can't try to make them move aside by honking horn etc - besides which horn honking is apparently forbidden inside the 4th ring road (not that you'd know it from living in Beijing!)

Forbidden...!!! holy cow I thought to honk you horn was part of the road rules there... they beep at everything... also the thought of drivers there giving way seems ideal...

[gougou]

So I guess both of them were wrong doing what they were doing. We as foreigners can be happy that the Chinese netizens are siding with the woman, not with their compatriot, as otherwise we'd have a witch hunt upon us similar to the quest for an English teacher in Shanghai - except that all foreign cyclists in Beijing would be the target.