The Wall Street Journal‘s weekend edition had a story about how that dictatorship’s government will restrict use of automobiles in Beijing during the Olympic Games. They are trying to limit auto use to reduce air pollution in the capital city.
The finest minds of state planning will accomplish a 50% reduction in traffic through an alternating daily ban on cars with odd or even license plates.
As the Journal reports, it is an easy ban for the rich to circumvent: corporations are arranging for the purchase of alternative license plates.
Didn’t Jimmy Carter try to ration gas sales based on an odd-even license restriction? I cannot recall how well that went, as I have a condition that causes me to repress memories of failed administrations.
(For that reason, I cannot recall anything between January 1977 and January 1981.)
It says nothing good about the Chinese government that they cannot develop a better scheme than Carter did a generation ago, albeit for different reasons.)