Auto show stalling Beijing's top priorities

I respect and have a passion for cars. Ever since I was a small boy with a Lamborghini Countach poster on my wall, I have revelled in the combination of artistry and obsessive engineering that goes into the world's most desirable machines. I also believe that cars have given us so much in terms of mobility and will continue to do so as we move from one form of vehicle to another. The basic form of the car will remain for a long time to come.

That being said, Beijing is not the place to have a car. Yes, it must be useful to be able to travel the vast distances that this city covers in the comfort of your own motor vehicle. But the problem is that there are already too many cars here. Yet, if the evidence from the recent Beijing International Automotive Exhibition is anything to go by, too many isn't enough.

Auto shows in Beijing have become big business in recent years, with foreign and Chinese carmakers eyeing their share of the domestic auto market. However, if Beijing traffic is where the continued buying of cars has left China, it really needs to stop.

The microcosm of the increased traffic created by the auto show sums this up nicely. Traffic authorities suggested people take public transport to a show for people who obviously like cars and owning them. This ironic warning was obviously not heeded though, as traffic was paralysed.

Even if people did want to get by using anything but their own car, the next most logical option of taking a taxi was utterly futile. It seems if you could get a taxi, you either had to share or pay a ridiculously high fare, even for a metered taxi.

It is certainly true that there is a subway station nearby the auto show, but this isn't the point. The promotion of further auto sales above a working taxi system in Beijing shows just how wrong the current priorities are.

I know from recent experience that taxis are becoming harder to find. When you do find one that is empty it may either drive by or stop and ask for a price higher than the metered fare. I realize the increased fuel costs are hurting drivers' wages, but it is infuriating when people don't do their job properly.　

Rather than promoting the further congestion of Beijing's roads with private vehicles, a far more extensive taxi fleet is needed. Even if this means a slight increase in prices, I would gladly accept that if it meant taxis were easy to find again and that drivers would simply use their meters.

Taxi drivers who don't use their meters should be fined or suspended because they are simply not doing their job and cheating passengers. They give a bad name to the few good drivers that are left and something needs to improve, otherwise I might just be walking everywhere, including the auto show.