Han Ximin

    ximhan@126.com

    SHENZHEN police tightened checks on violations by pedestrians and nonmotorized vehicles by deploying thousands of officers to the roads Thursday.

    The officers were equipped with PDA (personal digital assistant) devices with a facial recognition feature. “To those violators who refuse to produce ID cards, we will use the PDA to confirm their IDs before imposing punishment,” Feng Xinyi, deputy chief with Shenzhen Municipal Traffic Police Bureau, said at a news conference Wednesday.

    According to related rules, a pedestrian will be fined 20 yuan (US$2.9) for walking against a red light. The fine will be increased to 50 yuan if it is the violator’s second offense, occurs during rush hours, or if they take the lead in walking against a red light. If a person violates rules more than twice, refuses dissuasion or causes a traffic accident, the fine will be increased to 100 yuan.

    In 2016, police checked a total of 348,400 violations related to pedestrians and nonmotorized vehicles, or around 30,000 a month. Among them 123,200 were pedestrian violations, a rate of about 10,000 a month. Deaths in the accidents involving pedestrians and nonmotorized vehicles in 2016 were reduced by 35 percent compared with the previous year.

    January and October are the months with the most accidents. Among the districts, Bao’an, Longgang and Longhua districts were the top three with 56, 53 and 28 deaths, respectively, in 2016, according to Huang Qiang, head of the Traffic Accident Section of the traffic police bureau. These accidents were mainly caused by the pedestrians’ lack of safety awareness and the illegal use of motor lanes by nonmotorized vehicles, such as e-bikes and tricycles. Most accidents happened between 6 and 7 a.m. and between 9 and 10 p.m.

    “We checked about 300-400 violations a month. Many pedestrians, bicycle riders and e-bike riders don’t show safety awareness,” said Liu Jianjun, a police officer with the CBD Unit of the traffic police’s Futian Brigade.