A few years back, Nanjing’s traffic authorities introduced a regulation stating that motorists must stop for pedestrians using crossings that are not controlled by lights. If the crossing is controlled by lights, the pedestrians are obliged to wait for the green “man”.
Problem was, not so many people knew about the rule, and even fewer cared.
However, the bigger issue was that it can be very difficult for motorists to know whether or not a crossing has the lights with the red and green “men”.
At rush hour, in winter, in the rain and the dark, sensible drivers need to be scanning the road in front of them for bikes without lights, suicidal pedestrians wearing black and any number of other hazards. It’s asking a lot to also think they have time to look left or right in advance of every crossing to try to see if there are lights to control pedestrian movement, particularly if those lights might be obscured by signage, trees or a bus.
And so the Cardboard Policemen came to be. The cut-out, two dimensional model, a shade under a metre tall, “patrols” by “standing” in the reservation between the pedestrian crossing and the bike lane.
The theory goes that drivers shall spot the Cardboard Policeman and be alerted to the fact they need stop in the case of people attempting to cross.
Despite our Cardboard Policemen being relatively conspicuous, one foreign motorist told The Nanjinger, “Haven’t noticed them. Is that really a thing? So many cardboard people around to tell you to do the right thing”.
On the other hand, a more alert driver said, “I do my best to stop as appropriate, but don’t always see them until it’s too late. I’m not sure that’s it’s the most effective system, but at least there is one”.
Yet there are others who find the necessity for the Cardboard Policemen to be rather perplexing. The Director of Communications for a local five-star hotel told The Nanjinger, “I really don’t understand Nanjing people at all. In Hangzhou, drivers all stop way back from the crossing. They don’t need anything cardboard to tell them what to do”.
