Traffic police in Beijing have tightened up road patrols to crack down on motorists who deliberately hide their licence plates. The move was in response to the recent rise in the number of such misdeeds. Many car drivers took off the rear licence plate or covered it with mud or graffiti to escape speed-monitoring cameras.

The new police move started last week but cars without licence plates are still frequently seen speeding on the roads. Obviously the police move did not succeed in stopping the offence.

An obvious reason is that the police lack enough patrol cars to track the offenders. This makes the offence a low-risk adventure as the probability of being caught is small. Even if he or she gets caught, the offender will find the penalty not intolerable because he has escaped, say, nine times before.

The penalty for driving without a licence plate is a fine of 200 yuan (US$25), as for most other cases of breaching road rules. Generally speaking this is not a very small sum given the average income of ordinary citizens, but it is not big enough for a licence plate cover-up offence. I say this for two reasons.

First, the offence is a blatant wilful act, which is much worse than an ordinary breach such as accidentally speeding or doing a U-turn on a clear street. The intentional omission of a licence plate is a defiant challenge against the law. Intentional violation of law merits severe punishment.

Second, since this type of offender is so hard to catch, the wrongdoer should be fined several times, at least theoretically, that of an ordinary fault.

This logic also applies to headlight abuse, another dangerous act that is difficult to convict. Some motorists turn on the strong headlights when driving in dark but do not dim them when meeting another vehicle coming the opposite direction. The dazzling light causes the driver in the opposite car to lose sight temporarily and an accident usually follows. But the culprit will not admit he was using the high beam when police investigate the case.

In an accident that happened last week in which a car hit and killed a pedestrian when the driver was allegedly blinded by the strong light from an opposite truck, the policeman said: "It is very difficult to prove that the truck driver used the high beam because he could easily turn off the light soon after the tragedy happened."

Since headlight abuse is extremely dangerous and very difficult to ascertain, the offence should be given extraordinarily severe punishment once it is proved. In reality, however, there seems to be no police move to stop and punish this behaviour.

In China, punishments for acts disrupting public order tend to be mild. That probably is the reason why unethical behaviour is so difficult to eradicate among us Chinese. Penalties for such acts in Western countries are usually severe. In Australia, for instance, graffiti or vandalism in a railway car can incur a fine ranging from A$400 to A$2,200 (US$297-1,631), and trespassing on railway land can cost as high as A$5,500 (US$4,078).

The problem with licence plates of speeding motor vehicles also exists in Australia. When trying to catch street racers, the camera often cannot react fast enough to shoot a clear picture of the number plate. The Aussie cops' method is to confiscate the car.

The government of Hobart in Tasmania, Australia, ruled last month that cars racing in downtown areas could be confiscated for six months.

Email: liushinan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/22/2006 page4)