Crackdown targets bikers and pedestrians
Running red lights, taking adult passengers and cutting across motor vehicle lanes were some of the major causes of bike accidents resulting in injuries and deaths this year, Shanghai traffic police said on Thursday.
Traffic accidents involving non-motor vehicles leading to injury and death accounted for 60 percent of all such accidents in Shanghai this year.
Traffic police across the city have so far punished bike riders for 1.32 million offenses for illegally taking adult passengers and 1 million for not using bike lanes, among 3.8 million offenses recorded in total.
On top of that, about 180,000 offenses concerned going the wrong direction on a one-way lane, and there were 76,000 cases of riding through a red light.
Traffic offenses from bike riders and pedestrians have been a focus of traffic police in recent weeks, with more police officers covering crossroads with larger amounts of bikes and pedestrians.
More traffic police officers and traffic assistants are stationed on streets where bikes are banned and at entrances to tunnels and bridges crossing the Huangpu River, where bikes are also prohibited.
Apart from their efforts to lower accident rates, police are also paying attention to other offenses.
Police warn that any e-bike found to be without a proper plate will be seized on the scene until the owner of the bike gets one, and that backup will be called in from nearby police stations for any bike riders who refuse.
A woman riding a shared bike is told by a traffic assistant to wait behind the white line while the light is red at the intersection of Tianmu Road W. and Meiyuan Road on Thursday morning.
At the same crossroad, a group of pedestrians ignored the warnings of a traffic assistant who asked them not to cross the street where there was no zebra crossing.
A traffic assistant tells a group of pedestrians who were about to cross against a red light to return to the footpath at the crossroads of Huashan Road and Nanjing Road W. on Thursday morning.
