HUAIAN COUNTY, CHINA—So you think struggling home from Ontario’s cottage country was tough? Think again. And consider, if you will, the case of Chinese trucker Pang Laisuo. On Sunday his coal-laden transport truck was caught in a traffic jam near here, about 240 kilometres north of Beijing. Pang knew he’d have something of a wait. What he didn’t know was that it would last 18 hours. “Everyone who pulled up at 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon ended up being stuck there until 10 o’clock Monday morning,” says Pang, a lean and grizzled man in his 50s speaking at a roadside stop...