Gina and Lou in China

If you look carefully at this photo you can see the knee high bars in the street that segregate the bike, scooter, and pedestrian traffic from the motor vehicles. There's at least as much room set aside for former as for the latter, and probably more passenger miles traveled.

The large colorful umbrella at the end of one of the barricades is a shelter for one of the two to four traffic minders that are at every major intersection. These are people, usually female, equipped with orange flags, white gloves, orange vests and hats, and whistles, whose job is to harass the traffic as it whizzes around them not paying the slightest attention. They seem to be less effective than high school student hall monitors and apparently can't call for back up.

There aren't any in this photo, but there are usually pedestrians mixed in with the two and three wheeled traffic that goes tearing across the intersection when the light changes (or the traffic minder isn't watching).