Today is Danshuanghao Day, or perhaps Odds/Evens Day works better. Today the regulation ordering private vehicles with plates ending in odd or even numbers off the roads on alternate days comes into effect. I wonder how effective this will be. One of the rumours I heard was that some rich people were planning on buying a second car and getting the licence plate they need so they can drive every day- just alternate cars. I remember seeing in the 新京报/The Beijing News an article saying that not only was this perfectly legal, but the government was going to allow people to book their licence plate numbers so they actually could guarantee getting the one they need. Kinda defeats the purpose of the whole odds/evens rule, doesn’t it? And now this article says that there’s no odds/evens rule between midnight and three am. So I guess all the rich people are going to jump in their cars and… umm…. traffic jam for three hours every night? Somehow, I don’t think so.
Well, whatever, I like this rule and anything that reasonably cuts down on the number of private cars on the roads, and I hope this rule succeeds.
