Students Question Food Delivery Crackdown in Shenzhen

By Bailey Hu, June 11, 2018

For food delivery drivers in Shenzhen, especially those who ride e-bikes, these last few months have been tough.

Strict regulations released in March that aim at cutting down on crashes – six were killed in takeout-related accidents last year – have also taken a toll on drivers in the industry. Just a week after the rules were first implemented, 1,280 were suspended from work due to violations.

And according to Southern Metropolis Daily, 356 e-bike drivers have been put on a blacklist that prevents them from working in the food delivery industry for a year.

The harsh measures raised doubts from Shenzhen University law school students, who questioned their legality.

Under the current three-strike system, e-bike delivery drivers get suspended from work for a week after their first traffic violation. Another offense means a month of suspension, while three gets you fired and prohibited from transporting takeout for a year.

Another regulation states that if a delivery driver is involved in an accident that causes injury, all food delivery people in the vicinity must stop work for one to five days, depending on whether the e-bike driver was at fault. In addition, all must attend a safety training with local traffic police before continuing work.

According to Shenzhen University student Qi Zizi, that's unreasonable. As he told Southern Metropolis Daily, “This is like law in ancient times, making people who haven’t made mistakes take responsibility for the guilty party. This is obviously not in the spirit of rule of law."

Fellow student Lin Yating said the regulations are too strict, and potentially fatal for enterprises.

The regulations were first brought to students' attention by their ‘tutor,’ according to Qi. Subsequently, Qi organized opinions from classmates and sent them off to traffic police.

According to a reply from police in late May, the rules were put in place to regulate Shenzhen's massive and ever-growing delivery industry. This year alone takeout drivers have been involved in 9.8 percent of all e-bike accidents in the city, police stated, in part due to the market's need for speed: platforms require drivers to pick up food from restaurants within 10 minutes, and deduct a significant part of their earnings for each late delivery.

However, at a symposium on April 28, traffic police did say the regulations may be modified, according to Qi. He and his classmates are still holding out for police to publicize related documents, however, as well as cap required safety trainings to no more than three hours at a time.

READ MORE: Man on the Street: E-Bike Taxi Driver

[Cover image via hn.qq.com]