LIKE many other new drivers, Grace Li, who received her licence only a month ago, can hardly remember how many times she has been stopped by traffic police over the previous 30 days.

Almost every time she had gone out in her car she had been stopped by the police for some mistake or another. She was even beginning to experience a phobia about the police.

"The day before yesterday my car slipped backwards as I was driving up a slope and 'kissed' a car behind me," Li said.

Another time, Li just couldn't get her car to start up at an intersection when the light turned green, leaving a whole line of vehicles blaring their horns behind her.

Her most embarrassing problem is an inability to reverse her car skillfully. Quite often she had not been able to reverse her car before a queue of vehicles has gathered behind her, making her even more nervous.

Some drivers would half kindly and half sarcastically offer her a help, saying: "Shall I reverse the car for you if you don't know how to do it, young lady?"

According to Zhou Jing, a local police officer, the difficulties Li was encountering were quite common among novice drivers and were mainly due to their unfamiliarity with their cars and the roads.

He has several times met new drivers who, due to their lack of experience, forget to change the oil in their engines, which can cause their vehicles to break down during a journey.

Street killers

Yet the problems caused by such new drivers can go beyond unnecessary traffic congestion or light "kisses" with other cars. The latest statistics from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau show that new drivers are causing half of the city's deadly traffic accidents.

In the first half of this year, the city had altogether 22,247 accidents, in which 757 people died and 6,447 people were injured. The direct economic losses amounted to 156 million yuan (US$18.80 million).

Of these, traffic accidents caused by inexperienced drivers totalled

8,486. Although the overall figure has fallen by 18.32 per cent over same period last year, the death toll, 237 people altogether, climbed by 54.9 per cent.

Of the 713 traffic accidents which involved death during the period, half were caused by new drivers.

The city's road safety saw little improvement over the past two months of July and August. Close to 200 people died in 620 traffic accidents.

An analysis of the figures for July found that those who have held their license for one year or less top the list of dangerous drivers. In July alone, they caused 27 deaths.

Local residents seeking a nickname for these new drivers have started to call them "street killers".

"Dealing with the problem has long been a hard nut to crack," said Sun Guofu, an official with the Shanghai Traffic Police.

Currently the restrictions imposed upon the city's novice drivers are very limited. They are simply required to paste an "intern" label on their cars for at least one year.

"The label can alert other road users to the presence of a relatively inexperienced motorist and so cut the number of accidents," Sun said.

But many people find this lone restriction far from sufficient to cope with the increasing number of deadly accidents caused by such drivers.

Presently, Beijing is working on a regional regulation based on the newly implemented national Road Safety Law. The capital intends to write a line into the regulation forbidding new drivers from entering the fast lane.

Whether Shanghai will follow Beijing's lead in its own legislation has recently been a hot topic among locals.

Stricter tests

However, in Sun's opinion, solving the problem depends less on increasing the restrictions on new drivers than on enhancing the standard of driving training.

"The driving schools should ensure that each of their trainees who gains a licence is fully capable of driving on the roads, but the real situation as it exists now is that some turn out to be incompetent 'street killers'," he said.

Wang Jian, a local white-collar worker, who gained his licence three months ago, said that many of the trainees, due to heavy workloads, found it hard to spare the time for regular driving classes.

While the schools are always "considerate", in that they are flexible about their schedules and happy to work out ways to help their students save time, the teaching is still strictly test-oriented.

"That is why many new drivers don't even know how to turn on the lights when driving on the roads, because that is something beyond the scope of their driving classes and tests," Wang said.

In terms of saving time, Tian Tian, a local journalist, had even more absurd experiences. Two months ago she entered a driving school which looked formal from the outside. According to the city regulations, every trainee should swipe an IC card when entering the class to ensure that they have spent enough time in the school to receive proper training.

But Tian didn't receive the card at all, because the school arranged for a person to swipe the card on their behalf.

"In less than a week, the information on my card showed that the time I had spent taking the courses was already sufficient to take a driving test," she said.

"It is easy to understand - the teachers find it easier to get new students if they help them obtain their licences."

Although Tian has now got her licence, after taking some "easy courses", she said that without an experienced driver at her side, she still wouldn't dare to drive at all.

But not all new drivers would be as cautious as her. The shocking tally of accidents they cause is iron proof of that.

Fortunately, the local authorities are now determined to crack down on sub-standard training schools.

An official examination has been underway on the city's 126 training schools since September 1. At the same time, a grading of the city's 9,000 training teachers will be made. Those who rank bottom twice in a year will be dismissed from their posts.

From next month, stricter driving tests will also be introduced.

Computers will be used to appraise the driver's abilities at gear shifting, reversing and parking their cars, to replace the original appraisal based on human judgment.

In addition, a system will be established that spreads the punishment handed out for driving offenses beyond the new drivers themselves, with their teachers, training schools and those who have issued their licences also becoming liable.

"We hope these measures will help to reduce the number of accidents in the city," Sun said.