The Golden Week peak tourism season is bad news for students in Macau. With 120,000 to 150,000 mainland visitors pouring in through the borders every day, buses and taxis are packed.
One small accident can cause a huge traffic jam, forcing students to arrive late for classes.
Macau's transportation network is simply not designed to serve so many tourists. Currently, there are two bridges connecting the Macau peninsula and Taipa island, and one of them is always congested.
The older two-lane bridge has to be shut down whenever an accident occurs. This forces all Macau-Taipa traffic to be diverted to the newer, four-lane bridge, causing traffic jams there as well.
At about 4pm on October 4, a crash involving two buses on the old bridge resulted in 20 passengers - 18 adults and two children - being sent to hospital. The bridge was closed for nearly an hour, leading to heavy traffic congestion throughout the enclave. This seriously affected many students, who would have normally reached home within 10 minutes.
The behaviour of some mainland tourists doesn't help either. When last Monday's accident was just clearing up, I was on a mini-bus that stopped at the New Yaohan department store.