Life of Guangzhou - Old Man Teaches Traffic Manners with Bricks

An old man throws bricks at cars that run red lights through pedestrian crossings. (TTX.cn)

An old man in a northwestern Chinese city has won wide support online for throwing bricks at cars that run red lights through pedestrian crossings.

Yang Zhiguo, a retired school teacher in Lanzhou City, capital of Gansu Province, threw bricks at cars that didn't stop at a crossing in his neighborhood last Thursday, Lanzhou Morning Post reported yesterday.

Yang hit 30 vehicles that night, making national headlines the next day.

But it was not his first time he has tried to stop cars running red lights. He reportedly threw a brick at a van that ran the lights at the same crossing a few months ago.

An old man throws bricks at cars that run red lights through pedestrian crossings. (TTX.cn)

In fact, it was Yang who urged the local government and traffic authority to install traffic light at the crossing after an old woman from Yang's community was hit and killed by a car in the spring of last year.

However, many drivers didn't obey the traffic signals or even slowed at the crossing, prompting Yang's decision to raise public awareness in his own special way.

Yang attracted a lot of attention on the Internet. By 6pm on Saturday, his story published at major domestic Websites had prompted more than 1 million comments.

Sina.com, one of the biggest domestic news Websites, showed about 260,000 of the 330,000 comments supported Yang as drivers running red lights need to be made aware of their negligence. But more than 60,000 people said Yang's actions were illegal and should not be advocated.

Yang said he planned to keep up his brick-throwing campaign for a week but was stopped by his family.

Guo Shou'an, from the Qilihe traffic police, said Yang's methods would not be adopted but suggested dispatching officers and installing monitoring systems.

(By Cyril Li)

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