Jaywalkers face TV shame

2008-08-28 11:52

Shanghai - Shanghai jaywalkers face public humiliation as police plan to start broadcasting images of their offences on television to shame them into respecting traffic rules, local media said on Thursday.

Police plan to film and take photos of the rebel pedestrians, as well as cyclists that violate traffic rules, at various intersections in the city, according to the Shanghai Daily newspaper.

Photos of the offenders will be published in regular columns in newspapers, and in special television programmes launched by the police to promote the scheme, the paper said.

But the plan has come under fire from lawyers, who say public humiliation is too heavy a punishment for jaywalking.

"It's a principle of law that a penalty should match the seriousness of the crime," Liu Chunquan, a lawyer at Guangshen & Partners, was quoted as saying.

Traffic congestion is said to be caused mainly by traffic violations by pedestrians, cyclists and mopeds, but jaywalking in China is sometimes a necessity as oncoming cars refuse to give way on legal or illegal crossings.

Traffic police recorded 7.78 million violations at intersections in Shanghai in the first eight months of the year, according to the newspaper.

- AFP