A car illegally parking on Hankou Road is being towed away today. Illegal parking on narrow streets around the People's Square and the Bund has been a nuisance to traffic in these areas for years and traffic police said they would spend the following months reinforcing crackdown in the area. Illegal parkers will be fined 200 yuan ($30)l, according to traffic law.(Photo/Shanghai Daily)
Illegal car parking in the narrow streets around the People's Square and the Bund has been a nuisance for years, but traffic police said yesterday enhanced law enforcement has helped ease the situation.
On Tuesday morning, a plate-less car parked on Xizang Road M. and another car with a "temporary plate" — a sheet of paper stuck on the windshield — on Jiujiang Road were forked away by the police.
City police have vowed to tow away cars without plates or temporary plates that are illegally parked, Chen Wei, captain of the traffic police squad of the area, said.
"The drivers take chances thinking police cannot punish them when they are not sitting in the cars because they have no plates because the auto-ticketing cameras cannot detect them," Chen said.
He said they still have to tow away about 10 cars every day from Fuzhou Road to Beijing road E., but that number was down from 30 a few months ago.
Police have said parking on any streets without marked parking lanes is illegal. Violators will be fined 200 yuan (US$30), while those who drive cars without plates around will be deducted 12 credits and forced to take a written test on traffic rules to reclaim their driver's licenses.
