A retired teacher has become an unlikely Internet hit in China for throwing bricks at cars whose drivers were ignoring red lights at a dangerous crossing, state media reported yesterday.
The 74-year-old last week took up position on an intersection in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, and damaged more than 30 cars before he was stopped by police, the China Daily reported.
“I just wanted to catch people’s attention and tell the drivers to think of pedestrians,” the man was quoted as saying.
His attacks drew wide support in Chinese cyberspace, with nearly 80 percent of 400,000 respondents to an online poll backing him, the English-language paper said.
The man became a road safety campaigner after a pedestrian was killed near where he lived. He lobbied for traffic lights at the intersection, but drivers continued to ignore them, the paper said.
So last Thursday he started lobbing bricks at transgressors, and was joined by two other elderly men, while other people brought them bricks and water.
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