Andrew Jacobs in the
New York Times notes claims that Chinese farmer Shi Jianfeng evaded over US$550,000 in road tolls during eight months of driving, being punished by the Pingdingshan Intermediate People's Court in Henan province with a US$300,000 fine and life imprisonment.
There seems to be little dispute that Mr. Shi, who had turned to hauling sand and gravel to make a living, behaved egregiously. He purchased two fake military license plates and other documentation that allowed him and his hired drivers to escape paying tolls on his two trucks during 2,300 trips between May 2008 and January 2009. In announcing the verdict this week, The Dahe Daily suggested that the defendant had accepted his guilt because he declined to appeal. He also did not have a lawyer.
But the financial details of the violations for which Mr. Shi was convicted only served to feed suspicions that he had been railroaded. The toll per truck trip averages more than $200 — a high figure, though truck tolls can go by weight.
But many people noted that his profit during those toll-free days amounted to $30,000. If he had truly evaded $556,000 in road fees, as the police charge, he would have lost more than $520,000 from his trucking business.
Criticism of the sentence has reportedly included comments such as -
Rape and murder will earn you 15 years in prison but evading road charges will get you life. Ours is a miraculous country with peculiar laws.
The
Times comments that -
Popular aversion to such fees has been inflamed by media reports of freeloading government motorcades and inflated tolls that end up in the pockets of local officials. In 2008, the country’s National Audit Office said that motorists had handed over $2.3 billion at illegally erected tollbooths.
The
China Daily offered a more nuanced account, highlighting identity offences -
A man who used fake military documents to evade 3.68 million yuan ($557,000) in highway toll fees in a Central China city has been sentenced to life in prison for fraud. ... Shi Jianfeng, from Yuzhou city, bought two fake military car license plates, military driver's licenses, military ID cards and other documents.
Tollgate records showed that Shi avoided toll payment 2,362 times from May 2008 to January 2009, the court said.
Shi said in court that he hired people to drive two trucks to transport sand and stone and had earned more than 200,000 yuan during that period.
He was fined 2 million yuan and his illegal revenue was confiscated, according to the court verdict.
Shi did not hire a lawyer and does not plan to appeal, the court said.
An employee, surnamed Li, at Xiatang tollgate on Zhengzhou-Yaoshan Highway where Shi's trucks went through every day, said Shi claimed he was a soldier with Xuchang city's Armed Police division and came to apply for toll-free passes for two trucks in May 2008, saying there was a construction project going on for the division, the local Dahe Daily reported.
The documents were complete, but there was no way to identify if they were authentic, according to Li.
Shi Jianfeng admitted that he used fake military documents to evade toll fees in order to earn more money.
Fearing that tollgate employees would notice flaws in the documents, he regularly changed his drivers, the report said.
'Some socio-economic impacts of toll roads in rural China' by Him Chung in 10(2)
Journal of Transport Geography (2002) 145-156 notes that China's Roadway Law of 1998
authorises local governments at county levels or above to establish toll stations and collect fees within their administrative jurisdiction. Generally, toll stations are allowed every 40 km in the plains and 20 km in hilly areas. Thus, China's toll roads are found in both city and countryside – a case that is different from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, where toll roads are mainly established in urban areas. Also, the toll road is often the only connection between two places.
The idea of “maintain road by road” also entails the establishment of illegal toll stations. Huge revenues generated by tolls attracted a variety of government authorities to join this "gold rush" since the 1990s. Tollbooths have been established by Ministries of Police, Forestry, Taxation, Industry and Commerce, Urban Construction, Family Planning and Public Health, and different levels of local government. Illegal tolls have become a serious problem in China, and are regularly found along county, township and village roads. In 1993, a study showed that a local freight transport company in Shangdong province was fined a total of 275,732 yuan within 10 months. Among the total, 5% were contributed to transport departments, 89% to police departments and 6% to environmental, industry and commerce, and tax departments.
Illegal tolls were levied under various rubrics including vehicle washing, vehicle entrance, commodity delivery, border crossing and road user fees. Car washing was one of the most common levies. A car-washing booth was illegally established on a busy highway linking Guangzhou and Shenzhen SEZ. Drivers were stopped and forced to pay to have their vehicle washed. This 24 hr operated illegal booth occupied two of the three lanes and created serious traffic congestion at the eastern border of Guangzhou city. Also, according to the Ministry of Transport, there were illegal checkpoints and roadblocks. Road users were forced to pay separate fines to irrelevant authorities under the pretext of speeding, overloading and dangerous driving. A Guangdong newspaper disclosed that tickets for traffic infringements were given by agricultural officers at illegal checkpoints in Dongguan and Yunan). Another case showed that a farmer's utility truck was stopped at a roadblock in Weicheng and received a ticket of 190 yuan. No reasons were given from the uniformed officials who issued the infringement. Also, the receipt given was a fake with incorrect date and amount of fine. The situation worsened when legal tollbooths levied unauthorised charges so that the officers could profit personally. These "three illegals" (san lun)” – illegal tollbooths, illegal fines and illegal levies – jeopardised normal economic activities and transport development.
There are no statistics on the number of illegal stations, but the situation can be projected from sundry sources. Early in 1993, the Ministry of Transport abolished 467 toll stations and 292 levies were cancelled nationally. In Guangdong, a special team was established in 1995 to investigate the "three illegals". Within six months, over 1000 complaints were received. This led to the abolition of 14 illegal tollbooths in the province – six of them were located in rural areas. However, despite this achievement, many of the illegal toll stations have metamorphosed and now appear in mobile forms. Some mobile tollbooths are primitive and comprised only a rope, a torch, a "stop" sign, and several motorcycles. These mobile manifestations are difficult to check and close down. A survey in 1996 demonstrated that there were 2582 teams (excluding police departments) – 46 950 people in 15 different government uniforms – involved in collecting illegal tolls in Guangdong province. According to the Guangdong government, another 13 illegal toll stations, including 10 in the countryside, were abolished in 1998. However, these official figures underestimate the real number. A typical example of this was two illegal booths in Zhongshan persisted in tolling after they had been officially abolished.
