Here’s a traffic oddity in China.   First of all, the traffic lights are a little different.   There are three arrows (left, right, and straight), very short yellow lights, flashing green lights that serve as yellow lights, mixed red lights and green arrows.   The various states seem overly complex for a place like China, but they make sense after a while.   But…if you’ve got a red light, you’re not allowed to turn right on red.   OK, that’s not a huge cultural difference or anything, but what is so strange is that drivers seem to obey that (and anything that the traffic light indicates) without question, while at the same time making their own rules anywhere else on the road.   There may be no one coming, the right turn may be free and clear, but I almost never see anyone breaking that rule.   There’s a particular intersection that I’ve started watching every day where a right turn is so simple, but I never see anyone make the turn while the light is red.   When driving though, it’s common (as in every day) to see three lanes of traffic form where two are meant to be, people walking between lanes of moving traffic, cars stacking up vertically (essentially forming about five or six lanes when there are only two) to make a left turn, and even cars sometimes driving against traffic on major roads.   So, even though the “right on red” turn is a small arbitrary optimization in the US, no one even seems to consider it here.