Backing the righteous is good governance

Last week, a Didi driver in Dongguan, South China's Guangdong province, was hailed by a couple with a baby. Soon after boarding the cab, the baby threw up and they needed to rush to a hospital.

In order to waste no time, the driver jumped the red light at three crossroads, reaching the hospital in time to save the baby's life. However, he was slapped with a 600 yuan ($91.53) fine and 18 punitive points, meaning his driver's license would be canceled and he would have had to apply for a new one. The driver tried to contact the couple, hoping they would speak up for him before the police and bail him out, but he could not get the number.

However, on Monday, the Ministry of Public Security said through its official micro blog that the police had reviewed monitoring videos and the driver no longer faces the penalty.

On social media, many were critical of the couple, even calling them coldhearted, but on Tuesday, thepaper.cn reported that it was the hospital that was at fault, having wrongly given another patient's number to the driver.

By then the couple had received a lot of flak online. Some expressed concern that the couple's indifference might discourage others from taking such risks in the future. However, such fears are unfounded given that the police themselves dropped the case against the driver. The couple's testimony was uncalled for because of the evidence available from monitoring cameras installed at every crossroad, audio recording of the entire trip and the baby's hospital records.

Now that the case has had a happy ending, many on social networking sites said they too would act like the driver during an emergency.

The most encouraging point about the case is that, if anyone is involved in a similar emergency in the future, they can be brave enough to do the good deed. Even if those who should stand as witnesses do not do so, the police will collect all the evidence proving that there were extenuating circumstances.