A FEMALE employee with the Shenzhen Huafeng Petroleum and Chemical Trade Co. told police Thursday that she accepts the 69,000-yuan (US$10,900) penalty for illegally using emergency lanes 23 times this year.

    The penalty is a record for China.

    The response was made two days after police called for the company to cooperate with finding the driver who committed the violations with a company car.

    The woman, whose name is still unknown, said she was on a business trip overseas when traffic police announced the violations to the public last week.

    Police records showed the Shenzhen-registered vehicle had 30 outstanding traffic violations since it was registered in December last year.

    According to a police investigation, the car was mainly driven through the emergency lane of Binhai Boulevard between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. when traffic wasn’t very busy on the main road.

    Surveillance footage also showed that the car was being driven at around 50 kilometers per hour, lower than the 80 kilometers per hour speed limit on the boulevard.

    It was not clear why the driver would have driven in the emergency lane and calls to the telephone registered with the city’s vehicle management administration went unanswered, the Shenzhen Evening News said.

    The penalty has become a popular topic among local residents, with many curious about the identity of the woman. The SUV being driven is sold in China for between 1.7 million yuan and 3.5 million yuan. “I want to work for this company. I could drive such a fancy car if I was an employee,” one of the netizens joked on a forum on Sznews.com.

    According to Shenzhen’s regulations, a motorist will be fined 3,000 yuan for illegally using an emergency lane, as well as having six penalty points added to the driver’s license for each violation.

    Inappropriate emergency lane use has dropped in recent years, said Li Guangqun, head of the legislative affairs office of the city’s traffic police bureau. Police are using high-resolution monitoring cameras on expressways and fast roads to catch violators.

    During the National Day holiday, Shenzhen traffic police checked 154 emergency lane violations. This year, police have checked 10,549 violations related to illegally using emergency lanes. (Han Ximin)