Society

Violations broadcast to curb bad driving habits

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-03-20 17:40

NANJING - Pan Wei, a resident in Nanjing city, the capital of East China's Jiangsu province, has been particularly cautious when driving during the past two weeks.

He is fully aware that even a slight breach of traffic regulations is visible through monitoring cameras. In addition, anyone who travels on the city's major roads can learn his behavior in a minute.

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Early this month, traffic management authorities in Nanjing set up 52 large LED display screens along busy roads to post violations of traffic rules through text messages as part of the city's efforts to solve traffic congestion.

Such a message shows the license plate number as well as where and how the driver broke traffic regulations, which include unlawful parking, crossing double-yellow lines and driving in reverse, said He Yingwei, an official with the Nanjing Traffic Management Bureau.

Nowadays, roads in the city are crammed with 1.1 million motor vehicles.

"We hope exposure of behaviors that might cause traffic jams can deter and educate careless drivers in hopes of ensuring an orderly, safe and smooth traffic flow," he said.

He noted that the traffic violations were displayed on the screens shortly after the violators were caught through more than 400 cameras along major roads and monitoring devices in the traffic management bureau.

"I think it's a smart way to ease traffic jams. It will cause drivers to conscientiously observe traffic rules," Pan said.

Lu Jianfeng, a lawyer in Nanjing, said that the practice was more people-oriented since drivers would be alerted immediately after they breached traffic rules. "In the past, I wasn't informed of my mistakes until the annual vehicle check."

However, Chen Yong, another Nanjing resident, thought that the screens were not noticeable enough.

"As drivers usually look forward, the information on these screens could be ignored," Chen said, adding that it might work better if the screens were installed near traffic lights.

Also, some drivers said they would feel uncomfortable if private information, such as their license plate number, was made public.

Besides Nanjing, traffic congestion has become a headache for many other cities in China as the former "bicycle kingdom" transforms itself into one of the world's largest automobile consumers.

By the end of 2010, China had nearly 91 million civilian automobiles, up 19.3 percent year-on-year, said the National Bureau of Statistics.

In February, traffic management authorities in Beijing, which is notorious for gridlock, launched a five-year crackdown on 10 traffic violations, such as drunk driving, running red lights and driving without a license.

Since Friday, the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau has begun exposing these traffic violation cases through newspapers, video programs and websites.

In Wuhan city, capital of Central China's Hubei province, the government has, for the first time, released a list of 20 drivers who ran red lights and unlawfully parked cars. The list was given to local media on Saturday.