is this safe?

I was standing outside my office in Beijing last week, realizing in my haze of nostalgia after moving to Singapore - that I had completely forgotten how bad Beijing traffic is. Add a little rain to that scenario, and you have an all out pavement based war going on for desperate workers looking for transport home.

After having someone steal my cab more than once, I was starting to despair. Then I recognized the telltale signs of opportunity: a car creeping up towards me, window going down just a crack. This is where years of your mother telling you not to get into the car with strangers flies out the window.

I immediately jump in the car and start negotiating. Black market cabs are so common in Beijing - and safe. They're just people with cars looking to make a bit of extra cash, usually on rainy days or busy areas. I have many friends in Beijing who still heed their mothers advice, but I got over that a long time ago. And I had somewhere to be!

As we start driving, he flips over what I assumed was a CD player on the console, and puts in a disk. Seconds later, we're both watching James Bond, in Chinese.

All I could think was how unsafe it was to have a DVD player in the driver's view?! Is that even legal? (Then again, are black market cabs legal?)

When I read about the 9 day traffic jam from Beijing to Inner Mongolia this week - I decided that a dvd player for the driver is entirely safe...for their sanity!