The China Briefing BookstoreSept. 1 – The Ministry of Public Security will implement new regulations beginning January 1, 2009 allowing foreign drivers to be under the same jurisdiction as local Chinese drivers.
This means that local police will have the right to detain and incarcerate foreigners suspected of being responsible for road accidents until their cases are closed. This is in compliance with national legislation that prohibits foreigners from leaving the country while involved with criminal or civil cases.
In addition, the new law will allow guilty drivers to be imprisoned for up to three years and up to seven years for those who flee the scene of a fatal accident.
Assets and bank accounts of defendants may also be frozen upon request by the family of the victim ahead of any civil suits. This is to ensure that court ordered compensation may be met. Typical compensation payments include the cost of medical treatment, loss of earnings and damages for pain and suffering, in addition to a police fine. Getting off entirely is not possible because the police will usually allocate a percentage of the blame in all road accident cases.
Foreign nationals are allowed to drive on the mainland using a valid Chinese license or a temporary international license. However, the practice of driving without a license is still prevalent among foreigners in China especially for those who own motorcycles.
“We’ve had to deal with foreigners incarcerated already following road accidents,” says Alberto Vettoretti, managing partner for Dezan Shira & Associates in China. ” While the pleasure of driving a motorbike or car out and about in China is obvious, if you are unlicensed, it’s just not worth the risk.”
Even if the accident was their fault, says Vettoretti, the blame will tend to fall on the foreign driver in any event. “We’ve also seen cases of deliberate accidents being manufactured against foreigners just to obtain quick compensation payments from them.”
September 4th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Thank you for your informative emails.Concerning a temporary international license, i was always told that China does not honour any international drivers licenses.Can you elaborate on that,please? Thank you
September 4th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Is it really true that foreigners are allowed to drive with an international license?
September 4th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Depending on where you are in China, converting a foreign license to a Chinese one is a very quick and simple process. Mine took me less than 24 hours including translating my license and taking the test (in English). The test can be daunting as most places don’t have an English study manual, but there are publications around that have sample questions to practice on.
In all it essentially took me one full day to get my license and cost me able 200RMB. I fully recommend this as opposed to a temporary international license for anyone in China regularly.
September 5th, 2008 at 10:45 am
So basically it means that in the worst possible case after being hit by a drunk driver a foreigner driver will have all his money frozen and thrown to jail until the case is closed which in turn means until foreign driver agrees to pay the ransom. Am I correct?
I drive with Chinese driving license. As far as I know only such is honored.
September 6th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I converted my UK driving license to a Chines one exactly as with Mr Respinger very simple process. I have now been driving here in Shanghai and Jiangsu province for about 4 years now. I had the misfortune to be stationary at 11.00 pm one night waiting to turn left down Pudian road on a red light at a cross on Dong Fang Road road, when a car driven by a drunk driver hit the rear of my car causing some considerable damage. My wife who is Chinese was sitting next to me immediately got out to see the driver first of all get out of his car and staggered towards our car barely able to stand let alone walk normally. There ensued a heated conversation between my wife and the drunken driver, who having firstly accused me of reversing into his car then removed his car and turning right he drove it the wrong way down Pudian road parked it then returned and advised that since there was no car there was no accident.
The police had been summoned by my wife and they duly turned up but advised that they could do nothing as they were not traffic police. However they then ordered us all to the nearby Police station. We were kept here until 01.30 Hours. I being the driver had not consumed any alcohol. Clearly by the other drivers behaviour affirmed by the Police he was drunk and apparently they could not breathalize him, who was by this time behaving ourageously.
The traffic police were summoned and only one officer arrived, he affirmed that he could not breathalize anyone as it required two traffic policemen to be present. This I found most odd in particular since we were in a Police station. To cut a long story short the driver assisted by a friend was ordered to give me 2000 RMB for repairs to the car. The story about the repais is another thing that was also a huge waste of our time and very time consuming.
For all of you who drive my answer is to avoid driving and obtain a local chinese driver as I have done. There are a never ending amount of Chinese now who are taking to the roads and it is becoming worse and until they learn to have some respect for each other then they will never be able to drive in an orderly manner. There are rules here but it seems that only foreigners car drivers obey them. The majority of the traffic jams and accidents are caused by a lack of respect, bad manners, deliberate flaunting of traffic regulation most of which the Chinese drivers have little or no respect for let alone their total disregard for the Police.
It is a sad state of affairs when China has done so well to lift itself up yet they have done nothing to improve their respect for each other. There are about 8000 accident per week here in China with about 20% of these being fatal a statistic Chine should not be proud off.
My advice is get a driver a friend of our accident was in collission with an elctric bike, the driver of whiich threw himslf to the grounfd having seen that te driver was a foreigner. This accident although he was proven by the Police not to be at fault has so far cost him about 250,000 RMB.
September 8th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Thank you all for your comments. We would agree with Trevor Owen-Thomas’s experiences above. Dezan Shira & Associates would only recommend driving in China while in possession of a Chinese issued driving licence. While we have seen international driving licences being ‘accepted’ by Police during routine traffic checks, in the event of an accident they will not be accepted, as provision of an international license rather than a Chinese one is de facto demonstration that the driver is not familar with the road traffic laws of China, and that any accident, under any circumstances, must therefore be his/her fault. This can be highly problematic. In the event of a serious injury or even death, the foreign driver may be incarcerated until the case, apportion of blame, and compensation due to the victim or his family can be agreed. That can take a long time, and be very expensive. I have had experiences in the past with cases where the foreign driver, even when it was not their fault, was imprisoned for weeks, and made to pay substantial compensation to be released. It’s just not worth it - so be warned.
October 24th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Interesting. Perhaps this has gotten worse, or I have been lucky. In my ~16 years in China, I have had two accidents. In the first one, it was clearly not my fault, and the police allocated 100% of the blame to the other (Chinese) driver.
In the second instance, I rear-ended someone, and it was clearly my fault. I accepted the blame, and it was handled via the insurance, and cost me basically nothing out of pocket. I agree that the response time, and the time wasted after the accident, are incredibly long, but in both instances, I found the police to be fairly efficient and fair in their judgement…irregardless of the fact that I was a foreigner.
Of course, these are just my personal experiences, and I may have just been lucky…