Crash leads to call for more patrols

Two luxury cars collide in chase that reached 160 km/h; vehicles totaled and driver injured

Illegal road racing can be minimized or prevented if police strengthen patrols at night, and use technology to monitor traffic, experts said after two luxury cars collided while chasing each other in Beijing.

Traffic police must increase supervision in an effort to discourage both road racing and competitive driving, said Tai Yunqi, deputy director of the public security department at the People's Public Security University of China, on Tuesday.

Tai made the remarks after a Lamborghini and a Ferrari crashed in a tunnel on Datun Road near the Bird's Nest stadium at around 10 pm on Saturday.

The cars were totaled, the guard bars in the two-way tunnel were damaged and one of the drivers was slightly injured, authorities said.

The cars were traveling at 160 km/h when the accident took place, although the limit was 60 km/h, according to a statement posted by the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau on Monday.

The two drivers were accused of chasing each other and have been detained on suspicion of dangerous driving, the statement said.

The suspect driving the Ferrari, surnamed Yu, is 20 and from Jilin province, and the other, surnamed Tang, is a 21-year-old Beijing native, the statement said, adding that neither had a job.

Traffic police officers in Chaoyang district, where the crash occurred, said anti-drag racing efforts have been tried before, but they are hampered because they cannot endanger the public by driving faster than the racers, according to Beijing Times.

Tai said police should make full use of advanced technology to monitor traffic, especially at night.

"If traffic police officers from one station find someone driving furiously, they can call colleagues in the next site to block them in a timely manner by an electronic system that can cover traffic across the city," Tai said. "The traffic police should fight such wrongdoing intelligently instead of chasing the racers blindly."

Ju Xiaoping, a lawyer specializing in traffic accident disputes in Beijing, also recommended increasing the number of traffic police on patrol and surveillance cameras in areas where accidents happen frequently.

caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn