Chapter 21 Traffic Violation Twists and Turns
The tank traveled smoothly on National Highway 218 leading to Korla.
The road was wide and flat, with excellent visibility. There were no other vehicles in sight, and the entire highway seemed to have been built just for them.
Fang Qihang sat in the driver's seat, hands on the steering wheel, enjoying the exhilarating feeling of driving on a smooth road. The car navigation clearly announced, "Speed limit 60 ahead."
"60?" Fang Qihang raised an eyebrow, looking at the empty road that resembled an airport runway, his foot itching to go. A smirk played on his lips, and he slammed his right foot down on the accelerator!
The engine roared, and the speedometer needle swung rapidly to the right, 70, 80, 90, 100... instantly soaring to 120 kilometers per hour!
The Gobi Desert scenery outside the window rushed past, and the exhilarating feeling of speed overwhelmed me.
"You are speeding. Current speed is 126 km/h, speed limit is 60 km/h," the navigation system immediately issued a chilling warning.
Tan Chen, who was resting with his eyes closed, opened them upon hearing the voice, his brows furrowing slightly. "Speed limit 60."
"Hey, Tan, look how wide this road is, you could take off and land a plane there. There's not a soul in sight, it's no big deal!" Fang Qihang said nonchalantly, his tone even tinged with pride. "I went to my German friend's hometown before, and there are no speed limits on many roads there. I drove up to 260 that time, that's what driving is all about! 120 is nothing!"
“That’s overseas.” Tan Chen’s voice remained flat, but his disapproval was quite evident.
Xu Nianyi quickly leaned over from the back seat and joined in the persuasion, "That's right, Brother Hang! Behind every outrageous rule, there's probably a bloody lesson. The speed limit of 60 here must have its reasons, like there might be hidden intersections. Let's follow the rules, safety first, and we're not in a hurry anyway."
Hearing their objections, Fang Qihang pursed his lips. Although he thought they were making a mountain out of a molehill, he still reluctantly eased off the accelerator.
The car's speed gradually decreased, eventually settling at 80 kilometers per hour, and he was unwilling to slow down any further.
"80 is alright, right? It's only a little bit over," he muttered to himself.
Tan Chen and Xu Nian exchanged a glance. They thought that although 80 was speeding, it was much better than the 120 they had just driven, and it was only 20 over the limit. Under these road conditions, it didn't seem to be a big problem. So the two of them didn't say anything more.
The car continued moving forward at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour.
About ten minutes later, on a particularly open section of road ahead, a local traffic policeman wearing a reflective vest stood prominently by the roadside, clearly and forcefully making a stop gesture towards them, and then waving to the right to signal them to pull over.
"What's going on?" Fang Qihang stepped on the brakes, slowed down, and followed the instructions to pull over to the temporary parking area on the right.
"Is it a routine ID check?" Xu Nianyi guessed. They had been checked many times along the way and were used to it. "Have your IDs ready."
Fang Qihang brought the car to a stop and rolled down the window. A traffic policeman with a dark complexion and a serious expression walked over and, speaking in heavily accented Mandarin with a Xinjiang accent, sternly reprimanded him, "Driving so fast, do you not want your driver's license anymore?"
After saying that, he didn't explain further, but pointed to a simple office made from a blue shipping container next to him, signaling Fang Qihang to go over there.
The three people in the car looked at each other, somewhat bewildered.
"We controlled our speed after that, didn't we?" Xu Nianyi said, puzzled. "Except for that initial short stretch, we didn't exceed the speed limit by much afterward, right? And I didn't see any speed cameras along the way."
An ominous premonition descended upon her. She silently pulled out her phone and typed in "National Highway Speeding Penalty Standards".
The search results made her gasp in shock.
Speeding by 20% to 50% will result in a fine of 100-200 yuan and 6 demerit points.
Speeding by more than 50% will result in a fine of 500-2000 yuan and 12 demerit points!
12 points deducted! That means your driver's license will be revoked immediately!
Fang Qihang's face turned pale as he listened to Xu Nianyi's reading.
He didn't care about the fine, but if his driver's license was revoked, there was still a long road ahead, and he couldn't let Tan Chen and Xu Nian, both girls, drive it all the way.
Moreover, in this unfamiliar place, if your driver's license is revoked, you don't even know where to retake the test!
With a long face and looking like a wilted eggplant, he slunk out the car door and walked heavily toward the blue container that symbolized "judgment".
Xu Nianyi sat restlessly in the car, anxiously wringing her hands.
Although Tan Chen remained silent, his tightly pursed lips revealed a hint of seriousness.
While waiting, several more cars were stopped and parked in the temporary parking area. The drivers lined up in front of the container office to wait for their trial. Xu Nian overheard one of his local drivers talking to someone.
“You out-of-towners don’t know, but those lifelike traffic cops you see on the roadside, they have hidden cameras in the buckles of their belts! They’re specifically for catching speeders! We locals all know this, and when we see one, we immediately slow down!”
A lifelike traffic police dummy? Is the belt buckle a camera?
Xu Nianyi and Tan Chen were both shocked. Along the way, they kept seeing mannequin traffic police standing motionless by the roadside, holding up round signs that read "Slow down".
They thought it was just a decoration to warn drivers not to speed, who would have thought it would actually be used for speed measurement! And the camera was hidden in such a concealed place!
The two men felt a mix of emotions upon realizing they had sped past these "fake traffic cops," finding it both absurd and terrifying. They wondered if they had been caught on camera at 126 km/h.
After waiting for about ten minutes, the container door opened and Fang Qihang came out.
His expression was somewhat complicated, carrying a sense of relief at surviving a disaster.
Tan Chen, who had been silently observing outside, couldn't help but let out a very soft, almost inaudible chuckle when he saw Fang Qihang's completely different demeanor from when he boasted about "speeding at 260 km/h".
Fang Qihang could hardly believe his eyes! Tan Chen, who always had a cold face and was very sparing with words, was actually smiling?
Or was he amused by his own disheveled appearance?
In an instant, the frustration in his heart was strangely dispelled by the surprise of "actually making Tan Chen laugh"!
He exclaimed with delight, as if he had discovered a new continent, "Holy crap! Brother Tan! You can actually laugh!"
Tan Chen immediately suppressed his smile and regained his usual composure, as if what had just happened was just an illusion.
He calmly asked, "How did the traffic police issue the ticket?"
Fang Qihang opened the car door, sat in the passenger seat with a sullen expression, and watched Tan Chen skillfully start the car and drive back onto the national highway. He said with his head drooping, "25% speeding, 200 yuan fine, 6 points deducted."
He wailed, "Who knows! Dude, I'd rather he fine me more, even a thousand! Just don't deduct so many points from my license! I don't have many points on my license to begin with!"
Xu Nianyi leaned out from between the driver and passenger seats and said with lingering fear, "You should be grateful! It's good! If you had been going 126 km/h for that stretch, it would have been considered 100% speeding, and you would have been fined the maximum amount, 2,000 yuan, and had your license revoked with 12 points!"
"Yeah!" Fang Qihang slapped his thigh, saying with lingering fear, "They showed me two videos! The first one was when I was speeding at 126! The traffic cop pointed at the screen, his face stern, and said, 'Young man, if you drive like that, your driver's license will be revoked!' My legs went weak, and I almost hugged his leg and cried! I pleaded, 'Officer, we've come all this way from thousands of kilometers away on a road trip. What will we do if we lose our licenses? There are other guys waiting to take turns driving! I promise I'll never speed again!'"
"And then it became only a 6-point deduction?" Xu Nianyi asked curiously.
"Yes! It's mainly because the traffic police here are humane!" Fang Qihang's tone was tinged with gratitude. "They weren't after the fine, nor did they necessarily want to revoke my license. The officer saw that I was from out of town, a first-time offender, and that I sincerely admitted my mistake, so he gave me a lecture, saying that according to the first video, I definitely wouldn't keep my license today. But seeing that I did slow down later, although I was still a little over the limit, but my attitude was good. In the end, he issued the penalty based on the second video, the one that showed me traveling at 75 km/h."
He paused, then added, "And, inside that container, they made me stand as punishment and loudly read aloud the traffic regulations regarding speed limits! Goodness, it felt just like being punished by the teacher in middle school!"
Although he was fined, had points deducted, and experienced such a scare, the atmosphere in the car actually relaxed a bit after Fang Qihang finished recounting the whole process.
After all, compared to the worst possible outcome, this is a stroke of good luck amidst misfortune.
This taught them all a lesson.
Rules are rules, and no matter how good the road conditions are, you can't take chances.
Behind those seemingly outrageous regulations and cunning cameras may lie countless lessons learned through blood and tears, as well as a precious touch of humanity from those enforcing them without violating principles.
However! The next day, Fang Qihang was punished again.
The car in front of him was moving at a snail's pace. Seeing that there were no cars in the oncoming lane, he turned on his turn signal, stepped on the gas, and sped up in front of the car.
All three of them thought it was a normal lane change, and there were no "fake traffic police" on the roadside.
Unexpectedly, at an intersection, I saw the familiar fluorescent vests again. I gestured for them to stop, and then waved to the right in the same familiar way.
Fang Qihang was dumbfounded and asked the two people in the car in disbelief, "Did I speed again??"
He got off the bus dejectedly, and this time he quickly returned with a blank receipt.
His smile looked even more like a grimace.
"You wouldn't believe it if I told you," Fang Qihang said, utterly speechless. "This time it was actually filmed by a drone! Good heavens! They actually used a drone to film traffic violations! I just saw the drone while driving and was wondering what it was filming when there was nothing else on the road. Who would have thought it was filming traffic violations?!"
"How many points did you get this time?" Tan Chen interrupted his accusation.
"Overtaking on the curve, 200, 3 points." Fang Qihang was really about to collapse; he only had 2 points left to deduct.
"Let me drive. You can go to the traffic management website 12123 to learn how to reduce your points," Tan Chen suggested, and got out of the car and took the driver's seat.
With Xu Nianyi's explanation, Fang Qihang learned that watching 30 minutes of study videos and passing 20 exam questions could reduce one point, with a maximum reduction of 6 points within a cycle.
He then began to beg Xu Nianyi, "Sister Nian, Sister Nian, please help me study. I'm most afraid of doing problems."
"No!" Xu Nianyi said, "Given your driving habits, I think you need to retake your driving test."
"Fine, if you won't help, then don't..."
After these two traffic violations, the three of them drove with extra caution and strictly abided by traffic regulations.
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