Woman Throws Tantrum Over Traffic Fine, Sends Son Alone on His Way

A woman walking a baby along the street in China in this file photo. STR/AFP/Getty Images

A woman was stopped by police for walking on a busy road with her young child in a stroller, but she refused to pay the fine. So she threw a tantrum, took her son out of the stroller and told him to walk to his destination on his own, according to Chinese news outlet Beijing Times.

The child was taken to the police station where the mother later retrieved him. The report did not mention if she paid the fine or not.

The woman was stopped at a busy road in Chuzhou City of China’s Anhui Province on Aug. 13. She said the officer was bullying her, and thus opposed the fine, according to Beijing Times in the Aug. 19 report.

The Ticket Tantrum

The woman was seen by a traffic officer pushing a stroller, with her son in it, along the edge of the road. A video uploaded on Weibo shows that she was actually far from the sidewalk, as many large roads in China include frontage roads as well.

As she approaches the officer, he tells her to stop.

“This is your child, right?” the officer asks, as seen in the body camera video footage. “Yes, so what?” the woman responds. The officer then says she wasn’t walking in the proper place. “There’s a fine for this too?” she asks.

The officer confirms that she will be fined for walking on the road. “Then I’m not paying,” she says in defiance. The fine was 50 yuan ($7), according to the Beijing Times.

“You’re fining me based on what?” she asks the officer. After he recites a long title of the traffic law, she becomes more firm on her stance. “Then I’m just going to stand here, and I’m going to cry,” she responds to him in a threatening manner. “What right do you have to bully me like this? You can fine me when I’m just walking on the road?”

The officer raises his voice in response to her, arguing back against her shouts. People at the stop light begin to gather and watch the scene.

She appears to kneel down and attends to her child outside of the camera’s view. “Baby, stand up,” she says to her son as she lifts him out of the stroller. “You go to your school, I’m going to sit here and cry,” she says loudly to him.

The boy walks off, but the police took the child to the station not longer after, according to the Beijing Times.

The mother later took her son home from the police station. The report did not mention if she finally paid the 50 yuan fine.