Driving in Beijing

Not that I drove in China or anything, but if you're a new driver on the road in Beijing...it must be hella scary. Malaysia was ranked #1 as the world's worst drivers. I know our driving isn't Singaporean good but seriously, did they exclude China and Indonesia from the list?

First of all, there are so many cars on the road in Beijing and to make it worse a lot of them swerve here and there without signalling and without notice. It's like the norm for you to change lanes constantly like you're being tailed and need to lose your trackers.

And then there's the horrible blaring of horns. If you think Malaysia is bad with their holding down the horn, Beijing is worse. True, they don't hold it down but every minute you can hear about 3/4 beeps. I promise you. Plus they don't just beep at other cars, no. They horn at pedestrians too, telling them to get the hell out of their way.
Beeping is associated with being angry because its such a loud noise, but to be honest I don't think the drivers in Beijing horn because they are angry/impatient. It's just the norm to horn and let others know that they're there. Of course if they're impatient they will horn more frequently.

I was in a taxi once and the driver was by far the worse I had seen. He kept beeping at cars, pedestrians and cyclists but this one time he kept pressing down the horn in bursts for like 10 seconds (that's longer than it sounds). But the thing is...there were absolutely no cars in front of him. Seriously! If he wanted to let the cars in the other lane know that they shouldn't swerve, I think one beep would have sufficed. On the contrary, he would stop at every orange light when it would be perfectly alright to drive past (even I would because I'm already on the white line), but no he would stop. Until now, I am totally bewildered by that experience.

And with all the air pollution that Beijing has, why do they need to add noise pollution as well? It really is quite irritating when they keep beeping and horning especially when you're walking. Scares the bejeebers out of you. The thing is, the traffic lights are set for going straight so if cars want to turn they go whenever they can. But that means the light has turned green for the pedestrians to cross, thus even when you're clear to walk you have to look out for cars turning. Really, I know its common for them to walk to their destination and to the subway, but its life-threatening.