Bad traffic has become a bane of life in the metros of India, and it is something that we love to complain about. But here we have an example of a monster of traffic jam happening right in the heart of world’s second biggest economy, China. Yes, it is a traffic jam that has been projected to last for as long as a month!

It has been more than 10 days now, thousands of Beijing-bound vehicles have come to an almost standstill on a highway that runs from Inner Mongolia southeast to the Chinese capital. Trucks that are heading for the Chinese capital are moving slower than a snail on the Beijing-Tibet Expressway due to ongoing maintenance construction work on the highway which was formerly known as Badaling Expressway.

The budding economy this month has surpassed that of Japan’s in size and stands only behind the United States. The primary cause of this catastrophe-like traffic jam on this partially four-lane highway is the opening of coal mines in the northwest. Chinese Officials are pushing the blame on the maintenance projects that began mid-August for the epic congestion. The maintenance work would not be completed until mid-September.

Motorists who use the route on a daily basis say that bad traffic has been a hard truth of life there. But a traffic jam of this intensity must drive the sense out of anyone’s head. But apparently the Chinese are holding on to the situation well. So far, there have been no incidences of road rage. Many of the drivers in the worst hit areas are making the best of the times by playing chess, cards, and sleeping on asphalt.

“The problem is really that there are too many cars and trucks and not enough lanes,” said Bai Xiaolong, a 30-year-old truck driver stuck in the snarl. “We drivers are accustomed to this sort of thing happening.” In the current situation, the stuck motorists are suffering double blow. Nearby villagers are minting money by selling boxed lunches, bottled water for ten times the normal price.

The Chinese authorities are doing their best to ease out the traffic. They have even started allowing more trucks into the capital especially at night, he said. Traffic jam has become an epidemic in China, which has become the world’s largest market for new car sales. In 2009, new car sales in China rose 45 percent. According to a traffic official, the number of cars in Beijing increases by 1,900 a day.