Lines on the road? What are they for? Aliens landing in China and trying to work out the rules of society would be very puzzled by the lines that are painted on the roads. They would notice that most of the time cars will stay to a particular side of the road, the right hand side, and at first it might seem that the reason is to keep earthlings in cars from threatening one another’s’ safety but that couldn’t be a strict rule because many cars, particularly when the roads are very busy and more dangerous, go over to the left side of the road to pass cars on the right side. If the Aliens had previously gone to a Western country they might have to throw out the behavioural theories they made there because some of the conclusions they reached won’t work in China.
Double lines in the centre of the road could be thought to affect Westerners behaviour by stopping them from going onto the side of the road used by cars going in the opposite direction. That theory doesn’t work in China. Double lines, single lines, no difference. Another theory that seemed true in Western countries would be that the very thick lines in a series going right across a road make drivers stop when there is a pedestrian on the thick lines. In China they have a different effect on drivers. There is a kind of game going on between drivers and pedestrians. A driver with a clear view and going quickly will approach the thick lines without slowing and treat it as any other part of the road. A driver who is going slowly will try not to stop by veering round any pedestrian who is in danger of intersecting with his car. Or he will try to stop the pedestrian by not appearing to be going to stop his car. In the end he will only stop if a large group of pedestrians move as a group onto his intersection point just before he arrives at it. Any pedestrian without mass support will usually give way to the car.
If the lone pedestrian does not give way and they intersect with the car the driver of the car is obviously entitled to wave arms and make loud noises at the pedestrian who is normally lying down after intersecting with the vehicle. In some parts of earth where people eat cleaner more processed food and have more things in their houses and talk to one another more but less loudly the lines on the road appear to guide the vehicles and vehicles drive between the lines. In the part of earth the inhabitants call China or Zhong Guo the lines appear to have no such effect on the pathway traced by cars. The average alien might think that using a given breadth of roadway for five cars instead of three by ignoring lines would make travel more efficient (vehicles are for carrying things or people for travel from one point to another). However the vehicles do not use a straight path but weave in and out in a five strand near random weave so then move much more slowly and mathematics favours the other countries’ behaviour.
I agree with the alien analysis. If the lines on the road have no meaning and no effect on the behaviour of drivers, why have them? What are the lines on the road in China for?