Why all eyes are on delivery riders and red lights

In the travel stories and videos they post online, many foreign tourists claim that China's public security system is among the best in the world, reasoning that a woman can walk alone on the streets safely, even late at night, and that thieves and beggars have largely disappeared.

While I agree with them, I must point out that they have probably overlooked something that continues to bother us — thousands of electric bike riders — particularly delivery riders — who continue to run red lights while darting ahead, posing a threat to pedestrians and themselves alike.

Whenever I step out, my family members ask me to watch out for delivery riders, some of whom run red lights, ride against traffic, or speed along sidewalks.

China has at least 380 million such e-bikes that are categorized as non-motorized vehicles. While these e-bikes should run at speeds of no more than 25 kilometers per hour, many riders ignore the limits and drive at a much higher speed. As a result, accidents involving e-bikes occur frequently.

Statistics from Beijing show that 35 percent of fatal traffic accidents last year involved e-bikes, with 24.4 percent connected with running a red light.

In the past few years, I have witnessed a few such accidents at crossings near my home; in fact, some of my family members and I have suffered scratches after being grazed by e-bikes being driven by delivery riders.

Though scared and angry, we let them go without asking for any compensation.

Deep in our hearts, we have sympathy for the riders who work long hours come rain or shine and under great pressure to meet delivery deadlines.

In the past few years, many cities have tightened the reins on these delivery riders by imposing heavy fines on those breaking the law. But the number of e-bike riders in the country is so huge that it is difficult to catch all the offenders. At most, cities can mobilize all their resources for a few days' campaign to check all offending e-bikes.

But such regulations fail to address why delivery riders are in such a tearing hurry and run a red light sometimes — they are working under tight schedules.

Delivery is a huge industry in China. People order food, medicines and many other essential items on online platforms, and can usually expect delivery at their door within an hour.

But huge competition among different delivery platforms pushes each platform to make delivery within the shortest possible time to win more customers.

As a result, many platforms promise delivery in less than an hour, and it's the riders who shoulder the time pressure.

When a rider is required to cross five intersections to make a delivery 3-4 kilometers away within 15 minutes, a failure could lead to a bad review and corresponding fines from the platform. Therefore, delivery riders are left with no choice but to run red lights, go against traffic and ride on sidewalks as they rush to complete a delivery.

But there is good news for the riders and for us all in Beijing where the authorities and the country's major delivery platforms are talking about sharing the city's traffic information to make the platforms' time requirements more reasonable. This way the platforms will be provided with information about how long each red light lasts so that they can adjust their network systems to make a fresh estimate of how much time it would take for the riders to make a delivery after adding the time spent at a red light, without running it.

It may still be too early to celebrate, though. According to a Beijing Youth Daily report, the trial can be a success only when the new system can make accurate judgments of the ever-changing traffic situation.

Besides, Beijing has about 12,000 traffic lights and only about 60 percent of them are connected and jointly controlled.

Many cities, I guess, are watching with bated breath for Beijing's experiment, which, if successful, can be replicated across the country, for the benefit of riders, and pedestrians such as you and me.

The author is former deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily.