The end of the road

There have been a number of well-publicized cases in recent years of local governments grabbing land from farmers who didn't want to sell, then paying them ridiculously low prices for their land (if they paid at all). The government tried to hush these up at first, but eventually the protests became too big to hide any longer. In response to public outcry, the government (at least in my part of China) has recently been treating reluctant homeowners with kid gloves. Sometimes the results are tragic in their own right.

There is a new road that makes our trip to the farm much more convenient, shaving twenty minutes or more off the drive. However, in two places along the road you can see where holdouts have forced the government to build the road around their houses. Here's what we saw last weekend on our way home from the farm.

Here is the newly-constructed road. It's a big, beautiful boulevard about five kilometers long.

This picture is taken at one end of the new road, standing right where the lane was SUPPOSED to go.

This is the view 180 degrees behind the last picture. There is supposed to be a lane through this farmer's back yard, to connect with the road off in the distance.

Cars barreling down the road at 80 km an hour have to make a pretty sudden swerve around the farm house. You can see there's just one little tiny blue sign to indicate the sudden end of the road. There's no signage to warn you in advance, no red plastic cones or barrels — nothing.

Wait a moment. What's that on the side of the house?

I guess this guy didn't see the little blue sign in time! I'm guess that the black tarp over the truck's cab is not a good sign. It probably indicates that there's stuff inside there that you don't want to see. Given how few Chinese drivers wear seat belts, that's a fair guess.

You can just barely see it in this picture, but the truck smashed into the wall of the house pretty hard. There's a big cracked-up place right between the two windows.

I don't know how he got dug in so deep.

Here's the little cut-out where both directions of traffic share one and a half lanes. It's a little unnerving when those giant lorries come rumbling past in the other direction.

By the way, we went past the same spot again today. The truck has been removed, leaving no trace except a big smack on the side of the house.