Car lottery calamity(2)

Greasing the wheels

"Getting a temporary permit takes up one whole day each week - five to six hours travelling to the checkpoint - and then two hours waiting in line," said Liu Feng, a 29-year-old IT manager who is in the same boat as Wei.

A keen amateur photographer and outdoor adventurer, Liu bought a car after two years of failure in the lottery. His license plate is registered in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

"Accounting for fuel and road tolls, each trip costs around 120 yuan. In other words, I spend 52 days and more than 6,000 yuan each year on getting temporary registration permits," said Liu.

To alleviate this burden, car owners who rely on temporary registration permits to drive in Beijing have devised a number of ploys, said Wei. In addition to sellers on Taobao, who for a sum of around 100 yuan will acquire a permit for you, there are groups on messaging platform QQ to arrange carpools to checkpoints, as well as chartered buses.

There are also ways of improving one's chances in the license plate lottery, Wei added, such as asking friends with no intention of owning a car to enter the lottery on one's behalf. But so far, Wei has refrained from going down this route, saying that he wouldn't feel comfortable with the arrangement. If one of his friends did manage to "win" the lottery, the plate would still not be registered under Wei's own name, and he would have no legal protections if his friend wanted it back.

Common grievances

Many affected by the changes to regulations introduced in April believe the restrictions to be ineffective and hypocritical.

"This doesn't help ease traffic congestion or harm to the environment at all," said Wang Qiushi, a lawyer residing in Beijing.

Until the recent rule change, Wang drove a car with a Shanxi license plate, but he now drives a friend's vehicle that has a Beijing registration number.

"[Because of the regulation changes], hundreds of thousands of cars have to be driven out of town and back each week. This results in unnecessary carbon emissions, as well as making congestion worse on roads entering and exiting Beijing," said Wang.

Wei echoes Wang's thoughts.

"Isn't this making the pollution worse? It's a sheer waste of energy and money," he said.

Liu added that despite the added hassle caused by the regulation change, the number of cars on the road "show absolutely no sign of decreasing."

Wang believes the regulations amount to "regional discrimination," and has begun taking steps to change the quota system through legal means.

Lobbying for change

Wang has drafted an application petitioning the municipal government to change the regulation which differentiates between license plates from different regions.

He said that more than 700 people had signed the petition, and he had submitted it to the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council awaiting response.

"I was drumming up support to draw more attention to the issue, but someone from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau warned me to stop," said Wang.

Zhang Zhuting, a professor at the Transport Management Institute, said that he currently sees no alternatives.

Zhang noted that the quota system and restrictions on temporary permit holders were only one part of a broader strategy to combat traffic congestion and control carbon emissions. Positive measures are also being taken, said Zhu, such as the ongoing development of a comprehensive public transportation system that will make it less necessary to own a car.

"The very point of the restrictions is to inconvenience car owners who do not have local license plates, so there will be less cars on the road," Zhu said.

But the regulations have gone further than that, said Wei.