My father likes to show me the road rules in such way. But one problem is that I am driving for about 6 years and he forgot it and are teaching me as a child

Beijing traffic seems nightmarishly muddled until you live there long enough to realize: it works. Everyone understands it, the drivers, the passengers, the pedestrians, the bikers, etc. It's a self organizing system that operates largely without working traffic lights and police officers. Think asynchronous traffic.

And there are -less- accidents.

So what if it looks crazy to western eyes. How well does it work?

This is Henry B., the author, and Anonymous has is right - it does work. I was only there three months, so I never got to understand HOW it works while I was there (hence Step 11 in my diagram). But someone posted on the overpass diagram a really good way to think of it that makes sense (too late to do me any good) - everyone in the system acts like water, filling voids as they see them, and as long as everyone plays by those rules, it goes OK.

According to news I saw RE: The Olympics, Beijing officials are actively trying to reduce the number of cars on the road there to facilitate movements of outsiders (by at least 500,000 cars during that time). But the main stated reason was to decrease *pollution* from auto emissions more than reduction in traffic angst...

Also, having driven and lived in both northeastern NJ and Boston, with all the round-abouts and narrow streets and double parking on sidewalks... I wonder if Beijing could be much worse?