Originally Posted by
thedannywahl
After all the posts about the crackdown in Beijing I thought I'd add some info about what's going on in TJ:
Last May early in the morning on the South ring road you could find "sting" operations of police pulling over overloaded trucks, unplated trucks, etc... I was happy! Then throughout the summer (while I was gone) the operation moved on to cars, and now it's finally move on to motorbikes.
Keep in mind that driving on the ring road IS legal, but there's been a sting setup at the South ring road by the new Meijiang convention center in the afternoons for well over a month now. Unfortunately this operation seems only to be focused on "real" bikes (ignoring delivery boy bikes and R9s). And it seems to be a coordinated effort in making it as unsafe as possible.
My buddy had the police sneak around behind him while waiting at a red and take the key out of his ignition, then refuse to let him move to the shoulder while they interrogated him. They didn't give a damn he just didn't want to get rear-ended by a semi truck barreling down the road.
I was riding home from work in lane 2 going about 80kph when I saw some guy darting between the cars ahead. Turned out it was the police officer getting in position to stop me. He got directly in my lane, faced me and stuck his arms out wide. I started braking and swerved to the right in an effort to avoid widowing his wife (and mine...) when he lept the same direction shouting in Chinese "don't run off! don't run off! don't run off!" I was barely able to stop in time, he stepped up and tried to grab my key, but couldn't find it. I was trying to idle out of traffic, but he kept blocking the bike saying "give me your key give me your key!" I gave him the key and jumped off the bike to push it to the shoulder by his squad car but he kept blocking me saying "don't run off! I have your key!". I guess I know what the standard response and training is!
Anyways, I pulled over to the side, then he saw I was a foreigner and was shocked! He asked for my vehicle license which I handed to him, then he looked unhappy and went and had his partner make a phone call. The partner came back and said "boss says check for plates". Found my rear plate, back to the phone, "boss says check the front plate!". Found the front plate, back to phone... "check the insurance" "check the driver's license" "check his residency"
Finally after 15 minutes they gave me back my key, frustrated, and said, "well, just be careful". I said "thanks", they noticed how "lihai" I was for wearing a helmet, and a jacket. And I rode off, marveling at being told to be careful by the guy that walked across 4 lanes of traffic to deliberately get in my way...
Anyways, the most surprising things about this are 1) the duration of this crackdown on the ring road 2) the fact that it's on the ring road and not in the city where bikes are illegal
Things I wasn't surprised about 1) them not caring about R9s blowing the red lights 2) probable cause.... (this ain't America!)
I figure a few more weeks and things will be back to normal.
TIC.