If You Jaywalk in China You Will Now be Shown a 5 Minute Video of Bloody Car Accidents
(Thats Shanghai) Suffice to say, clamping down on jaywalking is a constant challenge for the traffic police of Shanghai. After last year’s innovation of illuminated zebra crossings and screen doors, they have now come up with a groundbreaking – and extreme and grizzly – solution. They are forcing jaywalkers to watch a video compilation of bloody accidents from past years, reports Shine.
Starting from January this year, pedestrians who disobey the traffic rules will not only receive verbal warnings from the traffic police, but also be required to watch a gruesome five-minute video containing graphic scenes of people hit by moving vehicles.
The war against jay-walkers in China is HEATING UP. I was first made aware of China’s crackdown on illegally crossing streets when they put up an electronic billboard on my street that would display images of people caught jay-walking in an attempt to publicly shame them.
That didn’t deter me one bit though. In fact, I think I started jay-walking more often because as a (semi) young dude in the entertainment industry I’m just trying to get my face out there anyway possible.
Then China introduced small yellow posts that would spray people with water if they weren’t obeying traffic signals.
That too had a negligible effect on me as they set them up right before Summer when China starts getting crazy hot and humid. There’s not much I won’t do to get spritzed in the face with cold water on a sticky day in August, including jay-walking.
Then China started using facial recognition technology to identify jay-wakers and send them a fine via text message.
Luckily, only Chinese citizens are in the government “face database” so this policy failed to impact how I cross the road as well.
However, now China has brought out the big guns and are making jay-walkers watch five minutes of people getting mowed down by cars. I haven’t been forced to watch the video yet but judging by the screen shots I’ve seen, it looks pretty brutal.
The police have also been recording people’s reactions to the video
and to quote one woman who was interviewed: “I swear I will never jaywalk again. Please don’t torture me with horrible stuff like this. Please.” Sooo ya, will this stop me from jay-walking? Probably not, but I’ll at least be looking both ways for cops now. I saw more than my fair share of graphic traffic accidents in Driver’s Ed class and don’t need to go down (or shall I say cross) that road again.