Man fined for painting road signs to aid his commute By News from Elsewhere...

...as found by BBC Monitoring Published duration 30 November 2017

media caption This man was so fed up with his commute he painted his own road signs

A Chinese man has been fined after he was captured on surveillance footage painting new road signs in a bid to make his daily commute easier.

The Modern Express reports that a 28-year-old man surnamed Cai, was fined 1,000 yuan (£112; $151) in the eastern city of Lianyungang, Jiangsu province. He was captured on camera on 27 September with a can of white paint painting new arrows onto the road to redirect traffic, and told police it was the result of frustrations over the long delays on his daily bus journey to work.

"I saw that the straight lane was always packed with cars, while the lane that turns left has a lot of space," he told the police.

"I thought changing the signs would make my commute smoother."

Traffic police told Modern Express that they thought Mr Cai's behaviour was "very dangerous" and could have resulted in a collision. They have since deployed workers to repaint the road.

This is not the first time that someone in China has used their arts and crafts skills to invent their own traffic rules.

In May, a driver in eastern Zhejiang was fined after surveillance footage captured him drawing his own parking space with chalk on a road.

image copyright MODERN EXPRESS image caption "There are traffic jams every day when I'm sat on the bus," Mr Cai told the police

Reporting by Kerry Allen