China Experiences 120km Traffic Jam

Written By: Padraig Kelly on September 28, 2010 No Comment

Traffic jams are one of the most frustrating things to be involved in. Anger rises and stress builds as you crawl along at snail pace. After a half an hour you have barely moved a few metres up the road and walkers are passing you out. If you have ever been to a rock concert then you know the frustration well. There is huge temptation to abandon the car completely, but next time you are stuck in an Irish traffic jam, spare a thought for drivers in China who were recently subjected to agony of a 120km tailback. This is the traffic jam to end all traffic jams. You can only imagine the level of anger and despair in the country over this.

Last week some unlucky Chinese motorists had the dubious honour of being trapped in one of the longest tailbacks ever recorded. It was a staggering 100 kilometres long and went on for nine days. Yes, you heard me right – that’s nine days, not nine hours or even an upsetting nine minutes. Now that’s one time you’d be happy to have your set of travel Monopoly with you.

The strange thing about the 120km traffic jam was the fact that the Chinese authorities had just cleared a huge traffic jam a few days before the new ‘bigger and better’ traffic jam occurred. Imagine you were caught in both.

The new jaw dropping traffic jam occurred in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. The traffic jam was heading towards Beijing and the province of Hebei. Coal trucks from Inner Mongolia were primarily affected by the traffic jam. More than 10,000 of these trucks had to ground to a halt. This specially built ‘car park’ is not quite their final destination. It must seem like hell to the truck drivers.

Nobody in Ireland can claim to have been in this size of a traffic jam so we need to keep things in perspective. Driving conditions in Ireland have improved with the upgrading of the M50 and the plethora of new motorways opened around the country. The chances of finding yourself in a tailback from Roscrea all the way to Dublin are very slim.

Bumper to bumper traffic jams can be a serious pain. What is not a pain is AXA’s cheap car insurance online. Check out our excellent young drivers insurance now.