AN SUV, which had been illegally parked on the sidewalk of a road in Futian District for a long time, was stripped of its license plates allegedly by the owner, according to a report on yesterday’s Shenzhen Evening News.

    The action was supposedly an attempt to avoid punishment from the traffic police authority for illegal parking, the report said.

    A resident who made the first online complaint about the illegally parked SUV said that he thought that the car owner removed the car’s plates so that the traffic police could not take photos for evidence.

    Reporters from the News found that parking spaces on Jingtian Road North were in short demand, being nearly full even during work days. The News did not see the illegally parked SUV without car plates that was shown in the photos provided by the netizen.

    However, removing car plates is said to be one of the common ways to avoid penalties from traffic police in that area, according to the News.

    There are two lanes in each direction on the street but only one side of the road is assigned with parking space. The parking fee on the street is 3 yuan (US$0.44) for the first half-hour and 6 yuan every 30 minutes for a maximum of three hours. Car owners will be charged 10 yuan for each half-hour after they are parked for over three hours.

    According to a nearby vehicle repair store, some car owners modify their permanent car plate frames to be detachable so they can remove their car plates at any time. Some car owners use this method to avoid being punished for illegal parking or speeding. However, it could, on the other hand, increase the risk of their cars being stolen.

    Removing license plates is one of the traffic violations that the traffic police are seriously cracking down on. If a car is found without a car plate, the owner will be fined 200 yuan and 12 penalty points will be added to his or her driver’s license. The car will also be impounded by police for a period of time.

    In most cases, traffic police officers wait for car owners to show up to claim their cars. If the owners do not show up, the cars are towed away.

    Parking has become a vexing problem for many car owners as the city is gaining many more cars than in previous years. Police said that Shenzhen residents owned as many as 3.4 million vehicles, but there are far from enough parking spaces in the city.

    (Zhang Qian)