Shanghai police will try a new tactic to stop people from jaywalking: public humiliation!
Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules, local media reported on Thursday.
Offending pedestrians, moped riders and cyclists would be snapped at selected intersections and their images put in regular columns and on special television programs set up by police, the Shanghai Daily said. [...]
Jaywalking is a way of life in major Chinese cities, where crossing roads legally can be a hair-raising battle of nerves with oncoming cars disinclined to give way to pedestrians.
Traffic police recorded 7.78 million jaywalking violations at Shanghai intersections in the first eight months of 2008, the paper said.
What is the rationale behind this law? That crossing the road is dangerous and so should be illegal? Is jumping off a cliff illegal? Hitting yourself over the head with a wooden mallet? Sticking you finger in an electric socket? No. We know that these things are dangerous without a law banning them.
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