Chapter Five: In the Face of a Car Accident, Everyone Is Equal!
“What mistake did I make? She made a mistake and got her wages docked—that’s only fair, isn’t it? I run a business myself. If my workers don’t meet standards, I dock their pay too!”
The SUV owner said this with an air of entitlement.
“Isn’t it because of careless people like you tossing cigarette butts everywhere that she got her wages docked?”
Tan Ping couldn’t help but correct him.
“What’s wrong with me tossing cigarette butts? If I didn’t toss them, what would she be picking up? How would she even have this job? I’m actually providing her with this work! Without people like me, she’d be out of a job! No salary even for a few hundred yuan a month!”
The SUV owner’s face was brimming with arrogance and pride.
“No, it seems you look down on sanitation workers?”
From the SUV driver’s tone, Tan Ping detected his superiority complex.
“Of course! She must be in her fifties or sixties now, right? At her age, making only a thousand or two a month—shouldn’t she reflect and find the reasons within herself? Why doesn’t she have a better job? Why hasn’t her salary increased? Maybe it’s because she hasn’t worked hard or properly!”
The SUV driver’s tone became even more condescending.
“Wow, what a statement!”
The viewers in the livestream were amused and outraged by the SUV owner’s words.
“At first glance, it sounds reasonable, but in reality, it’s nonsense!”
“Exactly! Every profession can have its stars—this is just creating a hierarchy of disdain between jobs!”
“Bro, judging by your outfit, you’re probably just a nouveau riche guy, huh?”
“Yeah! The true face of a nouveau riche, laid bare!”
Tan Ping felt his anger rising. He pointed at the car’s emblem and asked, “What kind of car is this? Must have cost quite a bit, right?”
“Wrangler. Not too expensive, around five or six hundred thousand yuan.”
The SUV driver said this with a faint pride.
“Wrangler? Damn, I want to curse!”
Tan Ping snapped, furious at the driver’s attitude.
“Alright! Next, let’s talk about your habit of smoking while driving!”
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Tan Ping nodded.
“Is it wrong to smoke while driving?”
The SUV driver looked a bit taken aback. Clearly, this was a habit he had long been accustomed to.
“Of course it’s wrong! Don’t think this is a trivial matter. Imagine if everyone smoked while driving—what kind of traffic chaos would that be? I’m correcting your traffic violation not just out of responsibility to you, but also to your parents and family. If you cause an accident because you’re smoking while driving, how devastated would they be?
At the same time, you must be responsible for every other road user. This is something you need to understand! When you drive, you’re not alone on the road. What about the safety of other participants? Do you think you can just drive recklessly—smoke whenever you want, toss cigarette butts out the window at will? When you toss those butts, have you thought about how our sanitation workers risk their lives to pick them up?”
“Comrade, you’re exaggerating! I only tossed one cigarette butt. It’s not like I killed the sanitation worker!”
The Wrangler owner glanced at a nearby sanitation worker and retorted.
Tan Ping took a deep breath and said, “Dear Wrangler owner, I know you only stick to your own logic, and there’s no point arguing further. Let’s watch some other videos.”
“Fine! Hopefully, the next videos won’t waste my time like these!”
The Wrangler owner nodded and leaned in again to watch the videos on Tan Ping’s phone.
Subtitles appeared on the screen: September 22, 2011, on the ring expressway—A sanitation worker was hit by a white Citroën car while picking up a cigarette butt discarded in the middle of the road. He was rushed to the hospital but died despite treatment.
“Died?”
The Wrangler owner was stunned. He hadn’t expected that a single discarded cigarette butt on the road could trigger such a tragic accident.
Tan Ping continued, “Here’s another case from January 7, 2012, at Shaxi intersection. Similarly, a sanitation worker was hit and killed on the spot by a taxi while picking up a discarded cigarette box.”
The footage showed the taxi’s shattered windshield stained with blood. On the ground lay a man in sanitation worker uniform. Beside him, his wife was weeping uncontrollably.
The middle-aged woman’s anguished cries moved everyone watching deeply.
Tan Ping played several more videos—these were all cases he had found during lunch on the traffic police’s internal platform.
“Faced with these bloody cases, what do you have to say? You might think tossing one cigarette butt is no big deal, just a few yuan’s worth of cigarettes. But have you thought about what impact your actions have on other sanitation workers?”
Seeing the Wrangler driver no longer arrogant but staring sharply at him, Tan Ping challenged him further.
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“Sorry, comrade! When I threw the cigarette butt, I never imagined such serious consequences would follow!”
The Wrangler owner immediately apologized repeatedly.
Not only him, but viewers in the livestream also sent heartfelt comments:
“I never thought a casually discarded cigarette butt could threaten the lives of our sanitation workers!”
“Thanks to Officer Tan, we realize how some easily overlooked daily habits can lead to such tragedies!”
“From now on, I will never toss cigarette butts out of car windows again!”
“Banning smoking while driving from now on, as my promise!”
“Me too! What might seem like a moment of pleasure could destroy entire families!”
At that moment, heartfelt messages flooded Tan Ping’s traffic safety livestream.
They no longer laughed at the show’s dramatics as before.
In the broadcast studio, the poised Officer Hua Hua and the adorable Officer Meng Meng smiled with relief.
Without a doubt, Tan Ping’s legal education this time was hugely successful.
“Now that you realize your mistake, what were you doing just now? Getting out of the car, threatening to issue a ticket, even trying to hit the camera and refusing to pay. What kind of attitude is that?
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