Giant traffic jam in China. Ways of the Celestial Empire

Many people would like to travel back to ancient times, because it seems that life was much simpler then. Clean air, fewer people, and most importantly - no traffic jams! You will be surprised, but the first traffic jams appeared in ancient times. Where did it all start and where was the biggest traffic jam in the world recorded?

History of traffic jams

The great and powerful Roman Empire was actively developing its political and trade relations, and roads would be very useful for this. Back in the 5th century, the Romans had special rules and regulations for road construction. At that time, it was the Roman Empire that had the densest network of roads, which were divided depending on the means of transportation along them. Thus, there were separate roads for horses and chariots.

Under Emperor Caesar, traffic rules first appeared, but, despite the excellent transport organization, the first traffic jams also appeared in Ancient Rome. After the collapse of the Empire, movement in its territories was no longer so violent.

In the 17th century, with the growth of cities and a clear increase in the number of people, the phenomenon of traffic jams occurred again. Carriages, moving along small European streets, often could not pass safely. There were too many of them, which made movement much more difficult.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the construction of subways briefly helped solve the problem of traffic congestion, taking on part of the passenger flow. However, traffic jams soon returned and are still an unpleasant part of many city residents.

World records. The biggest traffic jam in the world

People living in big cities are bound to encounter traffic congestion. They represent a concentration of vehicles on a separate section of the road. At the same time, cars move much slower than expected, or do not move at all. The severity of traffic jams is measured by kilometers of vehicle traffic, or time spent in a traffic jam.

The first largest traffic jam in the world was recorded in the USA, in the state of Washington. Then, in 1969, a huge number of people rushed to the Woodstock festival, creating a traffic jam 20 miles long.

For residents of Brazil, the traffic jam in Washington would seem like flowers. In 2008, the longest traffic jam in history was recorded in the Brazilian city of Sao Paolo. The length of the traffic jam was 292 kilometers.

The country that undoubtedly breaks all records for the number of vehicles and has the largest traffic jam in the world is China. This traffic jam should rather be called the longest, since the drivers spent about ten days in it. In 2010, the Beijing-Tibet route seemed to freeze. There were many reasons for this: accidents, traffic overload, road repair work. Enterprising traders even organized food trucks.

Fighting traffic jams

Road congestion with trucks and vehicles is growing. China's largest traffic jam in the world is irrefutable proof of this. Many countries have already begun to address these problems. For example, in Italy, the center of Rome is prohibited from visiting the center of Rome by car to anyone except those living in the area.

Residents of Beijing cannot use their own car every day. For each driver there is a separate day in the week when he can use the car, depending on the last digit of the number. On Monday, for example, only those whose numbers end in 1 and 5, etc. can travel.

Conclusion

Perhaps using a car is very convenient and much more pleasant than crowding with strangers on the subway. However, the fact that traffic jams create even more inconvenience and take up much more time cannot be denied. Both the largest traffic jam in the world, which occurred in Brazil, and the longest in China, only confirm that the time has come for people to change something.

Almost every large, densely populated city suffers from traffic jams. The largest congestion occurs in megacities such as Bangkok, Beijing, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles and Washington. There, people often have to set aside several hours a day just to move around. Even the average small-town American spends nearly an entire workweek a year stuck in traffic. Because roads are heavily congested, even minor disruptions on the roadway can lead to huge traffic jams. This is exactly what happened in 2010, when road work in Beijing caused a 12-day, 100-kilometer traffic jam.

This mega-traffic jam stretches along China National Highway 110. Ironically, it was caused by road work aimed at combating congestion. Yet Beijing's congested streets couldn't handle even that. Large maintenance trucks and the road work itself quickly brought traffic to a standstill. To make matters worse, the cars overheated greatly. All this forced motorists to stand on the road for days...

Of course, no matter how difficult the situation, there will always be those who will find a way to profit from it. Taking advantage of the opportunity, vendors offered instant noodles, other food items, water and cigarettes to stranded drivers at prices 10 times higher than normal. Those who refused to buy were sometimes threatened with damaging the car. There were many cases when money was stolen from cars and gas was siphoned off. However, everything was relatively calm as 400 police were called to patrol the roads.

The traffic jam dragged on for almost two weeks. The cars moved extremely slowly - 3 km a day. People in cars played cards, chess, or simply dozed. While most of us would never willingly stand in such a traffic jam, some truckers deliberately drove along this busy route (even though they could have avoided it). They wanted to spend as much time as possible on the road so they could then raise prices. Obviously, this did not help the situation.

Surprisingly, the plug disappeared on the 12th day. This turned out to be less than some officials had predicted. Apparently, local authorities overnight dispersed the congestion of cars, and they began to move at normal speed.

By the way, although Beijing had the longest traffic jam, the record for the longest traffic jam (in terms of distance) belongs to the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. There are regularly traffic jams up to 295 kilometers long!

Each of us has been stuck in a traffic jam at least once in our lives. If this happens to you again, don’t be nervous, remember that it can always get worse. For example, you might be stuck in a traffic jam on a highway in China. In China, National Day was celebrated from October 1 to October 7. On this occasion, more than half of the inhabitants of the world's largest country by population went on vacation. As a result, a giant traffic jam, about 3 kilometers long, formed on one of the expressways in the Hong Kong area. After what you have seen, traffic jams in your hometown will not seem so bad to you.

8 PHOTOS and 1 VIDEO

1. Drivers of cars driving along the G4 Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao highway were stuck in a traffic jam for many hours on October 6. (Photo: East News)
2. A traffic jam has formed before and after the new toll booth on this road. (Photo: East News)
3. The thing is that behind the toll terminals, and there were 25 of them, the highway narrowed sharply. What can be seen in the photographs. (Photo: East News)
4. The Chinese Ministry of Transport has calculated that about 750 million people went to visit family and friends or on vacation... about 750 million people, many of them in cars. (Photo: East News)
5. This year, China broke the world record for the number of cars on the country's roads. (Photo: East News)
6. You won’t envy the Chinese. However, they have had worse traffic jams than this. (Photo: East News)
7. Thus, on August 14, 2010, a traffic jam more than 100 kilometers long formed on the G110 main highway and the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, in which drivers had to stand for up to 10 days. Many cars moved at a maximum speed of 1 kilometer... per day. (Photo: East News)
8. Giant traffic jam in China. (Photo: East News)

This is what a traffic jam looks like in China.

Endless road queues are much worse than store queues. Drivers, stuck in traffic jams for hours, become furious. Some of them are already coming up with various activities for themselves to do on the road. Some are reading, girls are knitting, many are talking on the phone, playing games over the Internet or simply “picking their nose”, waiting for their time. All traffic jams arise due to the fact that the number of car owners is growing. In megacities, in general, many kilometers of traffic jams form.

The biggest traffic jam in the world

A rock festival was held in Washington in 1969. It was this that caused the formation of a multi-kilometer traffic jam. The Woodstock festival attracted at least 500,000 young people who arrived by car. As a result, a queue or traffic jam formed for 32 km.

This year the city was hit by the strongest hurricane in history. The residents were warned and, greatly frightened, began to run away. Moreover, everyone got into a car and drove to the 5th highway. As a result, a traffic jam of 160 km was formed.

There was a multi-kilometer traffic jam on the road due to bad weather conditions. Many residents went out of town to their dachas for the weekend, and when they returned back a surprise awaited them. Due to bad weather, a queue of 175 km formed.

A traffic jam 292 kilometers long is a completely new record. This is the worst traffic jam in history in Sao Paulo.

This year marks the world's largest traffic jam in China. It formed on August 11 and only on August 25 the congestion decreased significantly. For 2 weeks, the motorists were so tired, they wanted to eat, drink and sleep. But street vendors could afford such a traffic jam: they organized food sales, sold water, and at inflated prices by 2 times.

Beijing is surrounded by 6 ring roads. And still not enough space! Congestion occurs every year, with Beijing leading the world in traffic jams. In the Chinese capital, they cannot regulate the number of cars purchased, so traffic jams are inevitable.

Old, rough and narrow streets lead to annual traffic jams in Mexico City. Protests are held very often in Mexico City, which leads to kilometer-long traffic jams.

Every day, every hour, thousands of cars get stuck in big traffic jams. Local residents are already accustomed to traffic jams and treat it completely normally. Drivers time it and leave home several hours early to avoid being late for a meeting or work due to traffic jams.

There was a traffic jam on as many as 50 lanes. The fact is that Chinese motorists, having successfully celebrated the National Day of China, which lasts 7 days, put their family in the car and drove to their home. It was not specified how many families and how many hours it took to leave the city.

Every day, on the streets at home, cars sit idle in traffic jams. During this time, up to 500,000,000 liters of fuel are burned. Naturally, the atmosphere is polluted by exhaust gases.

The formation of huge traffic flows is influenced by 2 factors: weather conditions and the human factor. In addition to the rating of the largest traffic jams in the world, you can also divide them into durations. A person loses a lot of time on the road. In Manchester, the traffic jam lasted 72 hours, that's 3 days. The second longest traffic jam occurred in Paris. Motorists were stuck in traffic jams for more than 70 hours. Next comes Cologne - a 57-hour traffic jam.