I just read in China Daily that the government seeks some insights from foreigners living and working in China.

This is a very good strategy, I am happy to share a few simple thoughts and ideas.

My name is Cameron Macqueen and I am the general manager of Southern Cross Warranty Company. I have been living and working in China since October 2012.

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I am also a qualified scientist with a Bachelor of Science and Honors in Earth Sciences from the University of Melbourne — so I have some unique interest in what I would like to share with you below.

While living in China with my wife and two children, we have tried to integrate into society and learn as much of Chinese language and culture as has been possible in three years.

I am complimented on my language skills on a daily basis, thanks to some excellent teaching staff and participation in thousands of business meetings … This is all wonderful, but on my travels I have noticed a few things which I have often wondered how I can speak out about. They relate to two main areas of life within China: Health and Safety.

Safety:

As I have been driving in China since 2013, I am very well aware that China’s road rules are quite honestly ‘world class’. They are more than adequate, they are excellent. The rules cover all the bases they should, and in my opinion, 99% of them don’t require any update or changes.

The problem is that on a national basis, few drivers have respect for the rules — leading me to think that many of them don’t actually understand the road rules.

I have driven over 35,000 km around Shanghai and surrounding cities, and the accidents that I have witnessed or seen the aftermath of should not be happening.

My point is that tens of thousands of people (I read that each year over 20,000 children die in car accidents in China. In Australia, if over 400 people in an entire year die on the roads, there is public outcry.) are dying unnecessarily, and there is a lot that can be done to fix this. In Australia in the 1980s, we had a national campaign to educate people on the road rules and importance of wearing seat belts in the front seats and the back seats. China did a great job stamping out drunk driving, now it is time to clamp down on something which will save countless lives.

I very rarely get into a taxi which has working seat belts, or the belt is tucked away somewhere I can’t find it. All the children I see in cars are being held by someone in the back seat (no one with belts on) or climbing around in the back of the car. People just don’t realize that if their head hits something at only 15 km/h, they will most likely die or suffer horrific brain damage. This ends up giving others more pain and costing insurers and families a lot of money.

It’s understandable, when I see police officers driving with no belt on, not bothering to use their indicator to change lanes and driving through red lights, that the general population thinks this is acceptable behavior.

What can be done?

Apart from some national TV/radio/print media campaigns, the secret to its success can also generate a significant income for local governments.

I would equip police officers with the means to issue fines for the following:

No seat belt: 400 RMB (in the case of a minor - under 16 - offending, the driver pays the fine)

Use of mobile phone while driving: (500 RMB). This has been proven to distract drivers significantly, leading to many accidents.

Driving through red light: 400 RMB

Crossing solid line: 400 RMB

Change lanes without indicating: 400 RMB

If officers were paid a monthly bonus based on revenue, without doubt drivers’ habits would change within the space of a few weeks and people would wear seat belts as if they were completely normal.

The effect would be dramatic and instant …. The road deaths and road trauma would spiral downward. I don’t want to read any more articles mentioning things like ‘car crash results in mother and her two children dying’ where none of them have seat belts on and the mother is carrying one of the children in the front seat! If securely strapped into child seats in the back of the car, the newspaper article wouldn’t be necessary, they would be alive.

On the flip side, the hundreds of millions of RMB generated by these fines could be pumped back in to improve road safety awareness by funding the advertising campaigns.

The other part of safety on the roads would be to educate people how to drive on highways. Again, the road rules are fantastic and very clear. However, if I drive from Shanghai to Nanjing I would encounter hundreds and hundreds of people driving slowly in the ‘fast lane’, the far left lane.

This is so incredibly dangerous, as it forces drivers who want to simply drive at the speed limit to weave their way through the traffic. I saw a 20-car pile up on that road last year…. 20 cars! Staggering. If people were instructed to drive as the majority of the developed countries do, there would be far fewer problems. In China the roads are incredibly good and the cars are quite new, so that’s not the problem. It comes down to general awareness of what is the correct way to drive on these big roads.

Health:

I think it almost goes without saying that pollution in general is one of the hot topics relating to China currently. Air pollution is definitely at the top of the list when it comes to expat people living here.

Although Shanghai seems much better than Beijing most of the year, it is still something which I believe the government could do something dramatic to tidy up without much cost.

I have observed (and I might not be entirely correct because it doesn’t seem to be reported in the news) on my travels that through December into January, many farmers are burning off their crops in preparation for the next season. This is a practice which was widely used around the world before modern farming fertilizer techniques but is highly air polluting.

The place I come from has many bush fires in the summer months. A lot of the time, these smoke hazes drifting through the city smell like bush fires, they don’t smell like coal fires. If local governments were able to stamp out this practice and push farmers toward modern techniques used globally, I think we would find that some of these trouble months of pollution could be cleaned up dramatically — and that simple fix doesn’t require big infrastructure or big spending.

Burning off any rubbish creates toxic clouds of smoke, it could simply be a blanket ban on outdoor uncontrolled burning of crops and materials. Much safer to burn rubbish in controlled environments where the heat intensity is enough to complete a proper burn.

I know and understand that China has spent billions on green technologies, which the world truly appreciates. Sometimes it is the low hanging fruit which can have some great effects.

The modern China is a fantastic place to live and work. We have truly enjoyed our time here so far and look forward to doing our part to make it more successful.

I appreciate having a place to share my thinking. If there is anything else I can do to assist, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.