At the beginning of the New Year,
China set in place new traffic rules for the country. An article on CNN
describes the rules and the reactions of the people about the new rules.
According to the article, there were more than two million car accidents in China
during the past year which led to more than 62,000 deaths. To give you a number
to compare to, there were around 33,000 deaths by car accident in the United
States in 2010. The need for more strict traffic laws is understandable,
however the new system seems a bit peculiar and unfair to many drivers.
The new driving rules in China include heavier penalties for
violations such as drunk driving, phone usage, and running lights. The new
system uses a sort of point deduction on licenses. For every violation, there
is a certain amount of points deducted from a driver’s license. When the points
total reaches twelve, the driver’s license is suspended and the driver must
then take a sort of drivers-ed class where they review traffic rules for seven
days and then must pass a test at the end of the class.
The part of the law however that is sparking the most outrage in
drivers is one of the rules that states that a yellow traffic light is the same
as a red light. Running through a yellow light twice in one year would result
in suspension of the license.
I think that the point system is a good idea for things like
speeding tickets and what not but if the point system is used for drunk driving
and serious violations related to that, I don’t think that the enforcement is
serious enough. The yellow light rule however is stupid. The whole point of a
yellow light is to slow drivers down. If you take away the purpose of the yellow
light, drivers have to slam on their brakes to keep from going through a yellow
light. This would just cause more accidents and worsen the automobile problems
in China. (341)
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