Shanghai lacks road courtesy

On a rainy morning in Shanghai, I saw an old woman, stooped with age, standing precariously in the middle of a zebra crossing at the busy Renmin Lu near Luxiangyuan Lu. None of the speeding cars and buses stopped for her. They did not even slow down.

She was able to make it to the other side only because a taxi stopped in the middle of the road to pick up a fare.

We all know that pedestrians have no rights in Shanghai. This brutal fact was made clear to me less than a week after I arrived when a colleague was knocked down by a speeding bicycle in the pedestrian-only entertainment enclave of Xintiandi.