Two Shanxi province police chiefs lost their jobs after media reports said traffic policemen under their command had abused their power to collect fees from truck drivers.
Zhang Yong, director of the Shanxi provincial supervision department's office of rectifying, said the department has decided to remove the two directors and other officials from the public security bureaus in Lan-xian and Yuxian counties, where traffic policemen are suspected of charging truck drivers illegal fines.
The punishments came in response to a report on Monday by China Central Television (CCTV) that said traffic policemen in the two counties had fined truck drivers at will and without explaining their actions or producing receipts.
The CCTV report showed a person appearing to be a traffic policeman stop a truck on Oct 27 in Lanxian county. The man said nothing, only raising a single finger.
The driver responded by giving him 100 yuan ($15.7) and was allowed to pass.
The CCTV report showed the same truck being stopped again, this time upon entering the Yuxian county, where a man also appearing to be a traffic policeman charged the driver 50 yuan.
Before handing over that amount of money, the driver tried to bargain with the man, offering 30 yuan. That was refused.
"Come on, don't bargain with me," the man says in the report. "It's not like in the free market."
After accepting the money, the man discovered that a CCTV reporter had been filming him. He forced the CCTV reporter out of the truck and detained him for more than an hour.
Another person looking like a traffic policeman destroyed a large light the reporter had been using.
Zhang Yong, the provincial supervision official, said the supervision department will investigate the case and ensure the law is observed on Shanxi's roads, which are often used to take coal out of the province.
CCTV's report is not the first to accuse Shanxi police officers of charging truck drivers unreasonable fees.
Wang Qiang, a truck driver in Rizhao, Shandong province, said he received a fine of 1,250 yuan in Shanxi this past month when he was transporting construction machinery to Yangquan city.
"It's like robbing," Wang said on Tuesday. "If I refused to pay the money, the traffic policemen would have probably detained my truck for at least a day. I had to pay, and the traffic police rarely gave me a receipt."
Wang said Shanxi is where truck drivers are forced to pay the most unreasonable fees.
"The situation is better in Guangdong and other southern provinces."
Bian Zhihui, director of the Shanxi provincial public security department's traffic administration bureau, said the provincial government plans to crack down on traffic police's abuses and will show "zero tolerance" toward such misdeeds.
