Ineffective rules should be changed
The man who stoned cars jumping red lights should remind the government to revise ineffective traffic laws, says an article on the www.rednet.cn website. Excerpt:
An elderly man stoning cars that jump red lights in Lanzhou offers us some food for thought.
Do we have the right to stone cars that jump red lights? The elderly man, a retired teacher, may have vented his anger in a violent way, but many people living and working near the crossing have cheered for his "bravery".
Some even supported him when drivers pulled up and shouted at him for stoning their cars.
He usually threw stones at cars in the evening when more people could watch him "teaching the drivers a lesson". Some youths even helped him find stones and others actually joined him in throwing stones at cars.
If drivers had followed traffic rules, their cars would not have been stoned. In most of the cases when drivers break traffic rules, the victims are pedestrians.
The senior citizen's stones were aimed at drives who don't care for human lives and turn a blind eye to traffic rules.
According to a survey, 15 out of every 100 traffic accident casualties occur in China. The country's annual accident death toll is over 100,000, more than the number of people killed in the Sichuan earthquake last year.
Cars should be regulated more strictly to reduce the number of traffic law violators.
According to existing rules, a vehicle can hit the road immediately after a traffic violation either by paying a fine on the spot or being booked to pay one later.
Such a traffic law undermines the value of human life, and compels a senior citizen to stone cars.
The elderly man has created a furor, but will his act bring about a change in traffic rules?
(China Daily 07/16/2009 page9)
