All involved liable for violations by official cars

A?government-owned car in Xinxiang, in Central China's Henan province, came top of a list of 200 local automobiles that repeatedly broke the traffic rules. The driver committed 784 traffic rule violations before being punished. The Xinxiang official in charge said the driver had already been dismissed and he apologized to the higher authorities. Comments:

The car's bad record involves at least 120,000 yuan ($18,923) in fines. Who will pay the fines? In many similar cases, the government paid with taxpayers' money, which is a debatable practice because the driver committed the illegal deeds. More legislation is needed so that taxpayers no longer pay for the misdeeds of government officials and their drivers.

rednet.cn, Oct 25

Had the traffic police found the driver and punished him when he broke traffic rules five or six times, he might have been prevented from breaking the traffic rules so many times. The local traffic police actually failed in its duty by allowing a government car with such a bad record to continue travelling on the road and the chief officer should also be held responsible.

gmw.cn, Oct 24

The driver has paid for his misdeeds with his job, but since it is a government-owned car, he is not the only person responsible. The official in charge of administering the cars should have known his record, and some of the officials whom the driver served witnessed him breaking traffic laws but they neither called the police nor stopped him. All should be held accountable.

gongxinw.com, Oct 26

The government-owned car in Xinxiang is only one of the many that break traffic rules at will. Many officials simply dismiss the rules, claiming they break the rules to meet their "job responsibilities". This is a bad habit copied by their drivers. It is necessary to accelerate the process of establishing the rule of law to prevent such misdeeds from becoming rampant.

cnsq.com.cn, Oct 26