By Zhu Yuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-10-13 09:50

A fine of 20,000 yuan (US$2,660) imposed on a man who gave a lift to hitchhikers touched off a debate on the phenomenon of car pools in urban areas.

The man in Hangzhou, capital city of East China's Zhejiang Province, gave a lift to several hitchhikers and asked them for 6 yuan for the oil his car would consume on the way to their destination. But he was stopped by police and fined 20,000 yuan for engaging in illegal passenger transport.

The Chinese equivalent of a car pool is a pinche, which is becoming more popular among urban car owners because it's the easiest way to save on the expenses of keeping a car as gas prices rise.

Surfing the Internet, websites can be easily found providing information for car pool opportunities and partners. If four people have the same route to work, expenses can be saved by sharing driving duties. Not only do car pools save costs, they also help the environment and help alleviate traffic congestion. The more people who car pool, the less carbon dioxide is emitted and less pressure is put on traffic congestion.

There are separate car pool lanes on many expressways in the United States, encouraging cars to carry as many people as the vehicle's capacity allows. The traffic laws there encourage car pooling, which is considered a way to save energy and reduce emissions.

China has no such policy and neither do we have separate car pool lanes on highways or expressways. But the number of people choosing to enter car pools is on the rise. This is a sign that consumers are being forced to be more pragmatic in the use of motor vehicles as the skyrocketing price of gasoline takes a toll on their wallets.

However, the policy is lagging behind. Traffic police in some locations even consider car pooling illegal and have published rules to prohibit it, reasoning that it infringes upon the taxi business. And those who share expenses for using a single car are penalized for engaging in an illegal passenger transport business.

There are indeed some drivers who make a living engaging in the business of unlicensed passenger transport. Traffic police call them hei che (black vehicles); hei literally refers to their unlicensed status. A crackdown on such vehicles is undoubtedly necessary because they do not pay business taxes and are trying to take away part of an already meager market share from taxi drivers.

But car pooling is totally different in nature from these illegal practices. The latter operates for profit and does infringe upon the taxi market, while the former is simply trying to spend less. For the latter, their cars are money-making machines while the cars for the former are just for transport.

It would be a shame if traffic police failed to tell the difference. The fact that they could hardly tell whether the driver is operating an illegal passenger transport business or not right on the spot might be the best excuse for police to impose a fine on innocent drivers.

But further inquiries could easily reveal whether the driver is operating illegally: those who are engaged in such businesses do not usually have fixed jobs since they have to drive their cars around and wait for customers. It is almost impossible for those with a fixed job to get involved in these unlicensed businesses -nobody would be silly enough to sacrifice their job for this risky venture with an unfixed income.

The other argument police have to charge those who share the use of their cars is the fact that car owners charge those who ride in their vehicles. This is ridiculous - one of the motivations for car pooling is to reduce the cost of keeping private cars. If sharing the costs of private cars by car pooling is deemed illegal, it would equate to an outright ban on car pools.

The only other explanation is that the police are imposing fines to make a profit.

As more and more car owners organize their own car pool teams or organizations, whether or not environmental concerns are taken into consideration in the making of public policy has become an issue.

A recent survey found that more than 90 percent of Beijingers support car pools. The belief that it is a practice good for car owners that helps relieve traffic jams. It is estimated that if just 1 percent of car owners give up driving their cars for public transport nationwide, 80 million gallons of gasoline will be saved.

From this point view, car pools should be encouraged rather than discouraged or banned. Specific measures such as having separate car pool lanes on highways need to be taken to encourage car pooling.

The large scale widening of urban roads to encourage motor vehicles while narrowing bicycle and pedestrian lanes in the past two decades has proven to be a big mistake as the guiding principle behind it does not conform to the people-oriented principle advocated by the central government.

The wider urban roads are, the more private cars drive them. Rather than alleviating traffic congestion, widened roads have actually aggravated traffic congestion while the increase of private cars has affected the smooth flow of public buses.

We need to avoid making the same mistake on the car pool question. Let the frugal and environmentally friendly practices play their role in reducing the number of private cars on the road while reducing carbon dioxide emissions.