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Foreigners trapped in road safety crackdown, fined for riding e-bikes without plates

By Chen Huizhi | April 21, 2016, Thursday | Online Edition

OVER 20 foreigners on electric bikes have been fined over the past month for not possessing number plates for the bikes or for having a pillion rider, Hongkou District police told Shanghai Daily.

Most of the offenders turned out to be foreign students. Police have therefore reached out to Shanghai International Studies University to distribute “road safety notices” in English, Russian, Japanese and Korean languages in the campus.

Mikhail, a Russian who has been in Shanghai for four years, received one of the notices on Tuesday morning at a campaign organized by the police and the university. The notice lists 10 most frequent traffic offenses in the city that have been the focus of the ongoing crackdown since last month.

“In Russia people mostly drive, but it’s very convenient to ride an e-bike around here in Shanghai,” said Mikhail who uses an e-bike.

He said he was aware that e-bikes without plates were illegal and he took the help of a Chinese friend to get one.

But a Turkish student riding an electric bike on the campus without a plate was let off with a warning.

“I did not know if it had a plate or not because it belongs to a friend,” the student said.

Zhou Bo, an official from the Office of International Student Affairs of the university, said some of the foreign students had approached them in the past inquiring about traffic rules.

“Foreign students are not very well informed about traffic laws and rules in China, and we hope through this effort they can be better prepared and avoid traffic offenses,” he said.

The university has about 1,800 students from over 100 foreign countries but most of them are from Japan, South Korea, Russia, France, Spain and the US.

A plate for an e-bike, applied at the vehicle management offices, is free of charge, but the applicant should bring his identity document, the purchase receipt and the qualification certificate of the e-bike.

“A plate-less rider will be fined 50 yuan (US$8) and his e-bike will be temporarily seized by the police if he refuses to pay the fine or fails to prove where he purchased the bike,” said Chen Wei, a Hongkou police officer.

They will be fined the same amount for running a red light or using a no-entry lane; 20 yuan for taking another person on the bike or using motor lanes or sidewalks.

Zhou Xiang’an, a traffic police officer in Hongkou District, said foreigners pay the same fines as Chinese nationals.

Zhou said most young police officers were able to communicate with foreigners in English.

“When some of the offenders did not understand either English or Chinese, the police officers took the help of other colleagues,” he said.

Xu Wei, an official of Hongkou traffic police in charge of public education, said that the current temporary plates for e-bikes with a battery over 36V and speed limit of over 20 kilometers per hour will be invalid from March 1 next year.

Metro


 

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