In April 6, a truck driver in Botou City, Hebei Province, Jin Deqiang, committed suicide by taking poison after his car was detained and punished with 2,000 yuan at an overrun station in the Fengrun District of Tangshan City. The reason for the punishment was that the Beidou positioning system in the car was offline, and the driver himself was not even sure what was going on until he died, saying in his last words, “Please ask me how a driver would know (positioning offline). “
He said, he is 51 years old, running transport ten years down did not earn money, but fell ill, “three high, the heart is also broken, the face of such a body also have to stick to work “, now encountered such a thing, “I have seen through life, too meaningless”, urged his three children “Don’t follow my example of being a loser for the rest of your life”, also hope to die “wake up the leaders to pay attention to this matter”.
After his death, his family checked his account and found only 6,000 yuan, a fine equal to one-third of the savings he had left over the years. His brother, who was three years older than him and also a truck driver, said, “We don’t have much education, we just rely on driving trucks to barely get by. “
These words, originally he said to his family and the “national card users”, but it has exploded the network, because it is a tragic way to unveil the bottom of the social life corner. And all of us are at risk of falling into it.
The British economic historian R.H. Tawney, in Land and Labor in China, gave an impressive portrayal of rural China in 1931: “Some rural people are in a situation like a man standing for a long time in a neck-deep river, where the slightest surge of a wave will the slightest wave and one is doomed. “
For nearly forty years, in the optimism of “running for prosperity,” most Chinese may have thought they had (or even said goodbye forever) to the fear of such a situation. But in the past two or three years, this metaphor has reasserted itself over the heads of more and more people.
It’s not just the “no food in the hand” feeling, but also the feeling of being tightly controlled and unfettered, and Life has become a long and painful game, and none of us have nine lives, just rats being repeatedly electrocuted. For this reason, a middle-aged truck driver who has experienced the hardships of life said that life is “too meaningless”, which resonates with countless people.
For such a life, “Beidou dropped and punished” is the last wave of the unbearable, enough to become the end of the disaster. Obviously, the deceased was fighting against an unreasonable punishment with his death, as anthropologist Margery Wolf pointed out in a nutshell, “Suicide, like many Chinese behaviors, is not only a personal act, an expression of one’s own despair, but also an act directed at others. …… The usual way Westerners ask questions about suicide is ‘why,’ but in China, people may be more concerned with ‘Who? Who forced him to commit suicide? Who is responsible for this?’ “
Why is the punishment so heavy for a technical fault like a Beidou drop? The “Road Transport Vehicle Dynamic Supervision and Management Measures” does stipulate that road transport operators must keep the satellite positioning device online, and dropping the line must be ordered to correct, refusing to correct, a fine of 800 yuan; there is damage to the satellite positioning device and malicious artificial interference, shielding the satellite positioning device signal situation, then a fine of more than 2000 yuan, 5000 yuan. Moreover, the impoundment itself also needs to go through the procedure, the local traffic authority seems to be too heavy punishment.
My cousin also drove a truck for many years, I heard him talk about the pain and doorway. Running transport is both laborious and dangerous, and the money earned is often paid in road tolls and fines, sometimes even accounting for the bulk of the money, so drivers often communicate with each other on how to avoid these hurdles and penalties.
Each toll station, the driver will receive a chip card, to the next stop according to this payment. One way they do this is to “evade the card” by hiding behind a container truck ( “collector trucks”) to cross the border; later, some people came up with the trick of “changing cards “This trick, for example, from Chongming Chenhai Highway toll station to Jinshan, to 300 yuan, but the two drivers can agree to change cards halfway, it may only cost 5 yuan, from Qidong to Gaodong normal 190 yuan, change cards on a 20 yuan – this reason is very simple, just like Like two people taking the subway from each end of the city, maybe 10 stops each, but the middle rendezvous to change the traffic card, it shows that they each only sat a stop or two. He said that hundreds of people in their group, “seven out of ten collector drivers flee”, sometimes simply rushing to close, follow closely “Do not follow closely, that rod even windshield will be knocked off”.
At that time, Shanghai’s chip was not upgraded, only know where you come from, does not correspond to which car; but Zhejiang’s chip on the whole satellite tracking, will be seen broken, because then the trip route is too strange, how to do? Then someone else came up with the idea of putting the chip in two iron barrels to disable it.
This is what he said to me three years ago, after he felt that this line is too bitter, has washed his hands. But it is conceivable that, as the saying goes, “the road is one foot high, the devil is one ten foot high”, the PTB will not be unaware of these loopholes, and the best way, I’m afraid, is to require all drivers to be The best way, I’m afraid, is to require all drivers must be loaded with satellite positioning system, the implementation of full monitoring, so you can not escape.
In this way, the system, which is supposed to guide the driver’s route and provide convenience, is in turn converted into a monitoring of his work status. If the system of cargo pulling is to ensure at any time that the driver can not deviate from the route at will, shall not stay for a long time without reason, in order to guarantee that the cargo will not have problems and passengers will not be afraid because of yawning; then this system for truck drivers serves more on road safety and tolls.
Although the Ministry of Transport issued a document in 2018 requiring the promotion of intelligent video surveillance alarm technology “should adhere to the government-led, market-led, enterprise-oriented principle,” but Many places in the implementation is actually mandatory self-funded installation.
“Xinhua Viewpoint” reporter unannounced visits to heavy-duty truck drivers in Yuzhou, Henan Province, learned that: must be intelligent video surveillance “three sets” – car recorder, front camera, intelligent surveillance camera. These a total of 2800 yuan, the money equivalent to at least half a month of the driver’s income, a year in addition to insurance, repair costs in addition to the biggest expense, but must be installed, because “the company said several times, not installed, otherwise the annual audit can not pass, and do not run a car “. A driver reluctantly paid the money, but unsuccessfully demanded an invoice, the boss said: “to you to let you go to the TV station to expose me ah! “
However, this system often has the problem of “falling off the line when you meet a mountain”, inaccurate identification of behavior, and even excessive monitoring. A driver said: “Once a meal stuffed teeth subconsciously with a hand pick, the system immediately prompted ‘Do not smoke’, I was scared immediately I was so scared that I immediately did not dare to move. “
Jin Deqiang’s brother also runs transportation, he said: “This positioning system is usually mainly to detect whether there is fatigue driving, if the detection of fatigue driving, will be reminded, but no, there will be no prompt, usually it is difficult to notice that it is offline. “
It is not clear how the positioning system to detect human fatigue, if it can, then it at least protects the safety of the driver, but the implementation of the implementation, checkpoints care first of all, I am afraid that the system is normally online, such as not online will suspect the driver with tricks to interfere with the system. In this way, a technical fault may be interpreted as holding the bad motive of evading charges, I am afraid that is why the penalty is extra heavy.
In this can be seen behind the governance ideas: monitoring your system is implemented in the name of “all for your own good”, but you do not have the right to choose, but also have to pay for themselves, and You have to pay for it and make sure you are under surveillance at all times.
In a sense, the domestic society is the same for students and employees, and each of us cannot “fall off the line” and “deviate” in our lives. The “deviation”, or else the ensuing punishment. In this regard, this tragedy is not just a personal matter of the truck driver, or even a problem of the Beidou system, but a logical consequence of the whole society’s big “system”.
After this incident, I saw some people commenting on the Internet, saying, “Why did he drop the line when other places were fine? This is a domestic advocate seen from time to time: once the accident, do not criticize the system, more from their own body to find the problem. Others turn to emphasize that they can only struggle to survive: “People are sometimes too fragile, but learn to be strong, you are relieved, what about the living? ” – These victim-blaming voices may not realize that it is this logic that makes people feel “there’s no point in living.”
Another viewpoint connected with this likewise refuses to reflect, but emphasizes that this is all normal, because “no industry is easy, you do not want to do, there are many people still want to enter the industry “, furthermore, it argues that the existing set-up is fair and reasonable, and that one has to bear the burden of one’s own choice.
This can be said to be the contemporary “killing with reason” – only here the “reason” is “theory “theory” rather than “science”, it leaves aside the complex It sets aside the complexities of reality and requires a theoretical ideal state as a premise for the individual.
This is precisely one of the roots of many people’s suffering, because the weak have few choices, and in the case of no choice, once the accident, others emphasize that it is your own choice, and therefore to bear the corresponding responsibility. It is no wonder that some people sarcastically say that the tone of “why not eat meat” is like saying “If you can’t live, you can die! “
It would be nice if one day everyone could make such an autonomous, voluntary choice, but first they would have to be given the opportunity to choose, be fully informed of the risks, and enjoy adequate safeguards – none of which exist in today’s reality.
To be effectively observed and enforced, rules must take into account the interests and demands of all parties, but in China, what we often see is a vicious circle: first set a harsher rule than necessary, and then the managers try to exploit the loopholes, and then the managers further strengthen the monitoring efforts.
Such a game, we have been playing for thousands of years, but this not only pays unnecessary social costs, but also inevitably tragedy, because such a system set up one day will be stuck in a screw there. In this regard, the truck driver’s tragedy is not accidental, in the point of provoking social reflection, he actually died for all of us, and only then reflect on the problems of the entire system, in order to give real meaning to his death.
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