Updated: 3/3/05; 2:53:21 PM.
Shanghaied Weblog
Weblog from Marc van der Chijs, a Dutch entrepreneur living in Shanghai. A mix of serious and fun stories about China from the Chinese and international press, and some personal experiences from life in China.
        

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

One thing I noticed in Beijing that I had not seen before in China, are machines to pay your car parking fee. When I started living in Beijing parking was still free, but a few years ago parking attendants started to appear on Beijing[base ']s street. You paid them one or two kuai and could then park as long as you wanted. But as more cars appeared on the street also parking got more expensive. They wrote down your license plate and arrival time, and when you left they calculated the fee. It was still quite cheap (RMB 2 per hour in most places), and if you returned late at night the parking attendent went home already so parking was free again. But now it seems that the parking attendants will be replaced by parking meters. I have seen them only on one street so far (but I did not really pay attention to it, so they could be in more places already), but they were not in use yet. I asked the parking attendant about them, but he said he did not know how they worked or when the government would start using them. But he was able to tell me that you did not pay with cash but with your drivers debit card. This is a card that all Chinese drivers have, and which is used to pay fines to police when they stop you (note: this card was among others introduced to make sure that police officers could not overcharge you and pocket the difference themselves). The interesting thing is that foreign drivers with a Chinese drivers license and an officially registered Chinese car (with [OE]foreigner[base '] license plate) do not get a card like this. That was always quite handy, as you normally would not be stopped by police as they could not charge you anyway. Does this mean that foreigners won[base ']t have to pay parking fees anymore in the future?


9:55:25 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 Marc van der Chijs.
 
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