Students learn traffic rules by volunteering
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Eight student volunteers from Tongji University about to learn the rules of the road at the intersection of Siping Road and Zhongshan Road N2.
Chen Huizhi / SHINE -
The traffic police officers hand over to the students their volunteers' vests and credentials.
Chen Huizhi / SHINE -
The students put on volunteers' vests.
Chen Huizhi / SHINE -
Zhang Feng, a traffic police officer, talks to two student volunteers about traffic rules.
Chen Huizhi / SHINE -
A volunteer gives a leaflet of persuasion for people to wear helmets when riding e-bikes to an e-bike rider on Siping Road.
Ti Gong -
Two people are fined for riding bikes in a lane with traffic from the other direction outside Tongji University on Tuesday morning.
Chen Huizhi / SHINE
Eight students from Tongji University have become the first in Yangpu District to stand alongside traffic police officers and learn traffic rules on the streets.
The students, wearing volunteers’ vests, gathered at the intersection of Siping Road and Zhongshan Road N2 on Tuesday morning.
Wang Wenbin, an environment engineering student, told Shanghai Daily he was excited about volunteering.
“I wasn’t quite sure whether bike riders can use zebra crossings and how we can use them, but the instructions from the police officer made me understand the rules better, and here in the streets I get to correct other bike riders so all of us can be safer,” he said.
Wang said he will spread the knowledge to his friends in the university.
The officer he got instructions from was Zhang Feng, an experienced traffic officer from Siping Road Police Station who works in the area around Tongji University.
Zhang said the most frequent offenses by student bikers were ignoring red lights, riding in wrong direction and riding on sidewalks.
“A lesser understood rule is that if you are to cross the street on zebra crossings on your bike with a green light ahead, but you’re in a lane with traffic from the other direction, you will have to walk your bike over the crossings, but otherwise you can ride it,” he said.
Yangpu police said students will volunteer for 12 months to come and take to the streets at least once a month.
Similar volunteer activities will be held for students from other universities in the district, police said.
