Angry drivers attack parking lot attendants
- Source: Global Times
- [08:31 April 14 2011]
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A parking lot attendant by Honglingjin Bridge watches over vehicles. Photo: Guo Yingguang/GT
By Yan Shuang
Some Beijing drivers displeased by the parking fee increases that were enacted on April 1 are resorting to violence to avoid payment, according to a parking lot management company Wednesday.
A Jinbao Jie parking lot employee in Dongcheng district was hit by a car after the driver refused to pay a fee of 105 yuan ($16.04) on Monday. The attendant was hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage, according to a Beijing Times report Wednesday. Police are investigating.
In the past two weeks, there have been more than 30 cases of attendants being beaten by drivers, more than the number of such cases reported during the entirety of 2010, according to statistics collected by the Beijing Gonglian Shunda Parking Management Company, which manages parking on over 500 roads and has over 1,000 employees.
Most of those beaten were attacked by drivers who refused to pay the increased fees or failed to get a discount. Around 30 percent of the management company's parking lot administrators have quit their jobs during the past two weeks due to the increased difficulties, the report said.
Li Wenqing, a director with the company's Dongcheng district division, told the paper that the cases of beaten parking lot employees were just a fraction of all that actually happened, since only serious cases are reported to the company.
"We haven't had any drivers refuse to pay or hit employees here, though some did complain," Hou Wanpeng, an underground parking lot administrator at the Fortune Mall in Chaoyang district, told the Global Times Wednesday.
"It got a little rough for our business after the new charging standard was launched, as we lost about 40 percent of our clients," he added.
The injured parking lot employees will receive financial support from the management company, according to the report.
