Fire engine fiasco sparks online inferno

Yet another viral video hit China's Internet this week, although it didn't involve dancing teens, comedic sports stars or even poorly imitated foreign cartoons. Instead, a fire engine boxed in by obnoxious motorists on Ghost Street near Dongzhimen dominated video sharing website Youku's front page on Sunday.

The actual content of the video is nothing new; motorists of Beijing doing what they do best by displaying a complete lack of courtesy to emergency service vehicles. While doing so, they managed to slow down the fire engine from reaching a blaze engulfing a rice noodle restaurant. The video triggered a swathe of replies showing other videos from around the world where motorists obediently give way to fire engines, police cars and ambulances.

As a cyclist, I'll admit that I'm a little biased. To anyone on two wheels, Beijing motorists are an ever-present, unpredictable hazard.

Reactions from Web users ranged from the standard finger-pointing, blaming migrant workers and the traditional evil foreign influences responsible for the capital's ills, to the downright apathetic that suggested this is Beijing - deal with it.

The firefighters appealed to the general public for help, but appealing to a Beijing motorist for courtesy is akin to appealing to Hitler for tolerance, or to wolves to become vegetarian; it's just not in their nature.

Anyone who has enough money to buy a car develops an unhealthy sense of elitism, perhaps caused by some kind of radiation emitted from Chinese car air conditioning systems. After all, if you have enough money to afford a car, you probably see yourself above the law.

I blame the young fuerdai (wealthy second generation) for setting a poor example. After actively killing or maiming a pedestrian, they step out of the vehicle and decry that they are untouchable, an issue that came to boiling point during the Li Gang incident in October, 2010.

Cashed-up young Chinese street racers in Canada who badmouth the police and the fatal hit-and-run of Wang Yueyue in Guangdong Province last year - whereby several motorbikes and vehicles ploughed past (or over) the prone toddler - highlight the decline of people's respect for others on the road.

There are other gruesome examples of bad behavior behind the wheel that are, for one reason or another, considered acceptable. Last year, a Chinese doctor in Hefei, Anhui Province, labeled bad driving a "disease" that needed to be treated. He's right, of course, and there are experts who study traffic psychology who would support his diagnosis.

If Beijing motorists continue to behave like zombies behind the wheel, they need to be offered incentives for good behavior to help break the cycle. Motorists who give way to emergency service vehicles should be rewarded, while those who don't ought to be fined, or lose demerit points on their driver's license. It's a situation where everyone wins. After all, one day the motorist who boxed in the fire engine could return home and find his apartment a mere pile of ashes because firefighters couldn't arrive at the scene on time.