Officials to clamp down on jaywalkers

If traffic officials in Shijiazhuang have their way, pedestrians will no longer be able to defy red lights and cross the streets any time they please without fear of punishment.

Authorities in the city, the capital of Hebei province, have begun imposing fines as high as 50 yuan ($8) on jaywalkers as part of a trial campaign meant to stop people from crossing roads at the wrong times and places.

The new rules treat pedestrians attempting to move across large and small intersections differently. When groups of pedestrians cross large intersections in defiance of red lights, the first three of their members will be fined; at smaller intersections, all jaywalkers will be punished, Wu Ruiqi, director of the Shijiazhuang traffic management bureau, was quoted as saying by Legal Daily.

The trial comes in response to a heated debate that arose online in China about the "Chinese style of crossing the road", a term referring to the tendency of large crowds of people to cross roads in disobedience of red lights.

The controversy became more heated after someone posted a comment on Sina Weibo, a micro-blogging site, saying "the Chinese way of crossing roads is to cross them without taking traffic lights into consideration, so long as you are part of a crowd".

In a China Central Television news program this month, a video showed more than 600 people walking through red lights over one hour at a crossroads in Shijiazhuang.

Some said the Chinese believe authorities are reluctant to punish large numbers of people at once and thus don't mind violating the rules in groups.

"I believe that imposing fines is not the ultimate purpose of this campaign," said Zhang Yanchen, a 25-year-old resident. "This will at least have the effect of changing people's notion that offenders can avoid being punished."

Zhang Yajun, an employee at a telecommunication company in Shijiazhuang, said she still sees people who disobey red lights in places downtown - even at times when police are obviously stationed at crossroads.

"It will be difficult to identify who the first three rule-breakers are when a group of people walk through a red light. In these sorts of case, there could be disputes when the police try to fine offenders and that could lead to traffic jams."

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