Friday, January 14, 2011

Life sentence for avoiding tolls

The NY Times reports a Chinese driver was sentenced to life in prison for evading tolls:
BEIJING — Like most drivers around the world, Shi Jianfeng did not like to roll down his window at toll booths. In fact, Mr. Shi, a farmer from Henan Province in central China, was so averse to toll collectors, he evaded more than $550,000 in road fees during eight months of highway driving, according to the provincial court that convicted him.


Life in prison seems a bit extreme. But so is $550,000 in tolls for eight months! That's a lot of cash. Shi did have three vehicles and was hauling sand which made the tolls worse because the tolls are sometimes levied by weight, and apparently there is now an uproar over the tolls. The rest of the story has some interesting details about road tolling in China.

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