Beijing's municipal government has vowed to strengthen action against army and government workers involved in traffic violations whilst using publicly owned vehicles, especially when they are law enforcement officers.
 
From Sunday, the government plans to make all violations public, the Beijing News reported.

Besides punishments prescribed by the Road Traffic Safety Law, units whose public vehicles are involved in serious traffic accidents will also be punished by the government, sources said.

Local residents have been criticizing government vehicle drivers who break the law, noting that some individuals operating "special" government cars do not see fit to abide by the very Road Traffic Safety Law they are supposed to uphold.

Cars used by army or police can easily be distinguished by their license plates in China.

"At the Gulou crossing in Beijing, for example, when all vehicles are waiting for a green light, army cars rush right through red lights," a citizen said in an online commentary yesterday.

The decision to crack down on government traffic violators is being initiated by eight municipal party and government departments, including the Publicity Department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Beijing Municipal Commission of Communications.

The move is expected to last through June 2008, just ahead of the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing.

The municipal government says the move is part of an effort to improve traffic safety education among local residents according to new measures that will be effective next January.

University students, migrant workers, drivers and pedestrians are special targets when it comes to traffic education.

Students are required to acquire traffic safety knowledge when entering universities, and drivers and pedestrians are being asked to respect zebra-striped pedestrian crossings.

Currently, some drivers will choose to drive right through the crossings even when pedestrians are present, and pedestrians cross the road anywhere.

The city government is also launching a plan to make residential districts and villages more traffic-friendly, with the hope that more than 60 percent of urban residential districts and 50 percent of villages within the 1 kilometer radius of major roads become traffic-friendly by next year.

The two figures are expected to reach 80 percent and 70 percent by 2007.

A batch of other areas, roads and public transportation lines will also be named by the local government as traffic-friendly in the near future.

Traffic-friendly areas and roads will be required to have no pedestrians crossing the street apart from on crossings, no cars failing to obey red lights and no cars parked in forbidden areas, sources said. 

(China Daily December 7, 2004)