License plate shows up in 500 traffic offenses

Police have associated a sport utility vehicle bearing a license plate marked "Shaan E00000" with 500 traffic offenses over the span of six months and have found that more than 10 vehicles have been using plates carrying the same designation.

A resident of Weinan, Shaanxi province, who declined to provide his full name, logged onto the Weinan Public Security Traffic Information Network on July 23 to check his traffic records. There he accidentally discovered that an SUV bearing the plate Shaan E00000 — the first part of designation stands for "Shaanxi province — is believed to have been involved in 579 traffic offenses from Feb 7 to Monday this year and nearly 710 going back to March 17, 2008.

The network showed that 230 of the offenses had led to a fine of 26,320 yuan ($4,115) and that officials were still dealing with 479 of the other offenses.

Weinan traffic police said the license plate is registered to a vehicle owner who lives in the city's Pucheng county and the plate was put on a yellow Tourareg SUV.

Traffic records showed that police have found the license designation was used on both cars and SUVs and that more than 100 drivers have been fined for breaking traffic laws while driving vehicles bearing license plate designated in the same way.

Police determined that at least 10 vehicles have used license plates designated Shaan E00000. They also said they will work harder to crack down on the use of copied and fake license plates.