Shanghai Police Help Disabled Mother Find Way Out After Illegal Tricycle Rides

Shanghai traffic police have helped a disabled mother and her two sons find a more stable way to live after repeatedly stopping them for using modified tricycles to carry passengers illegally near a Metro station, Shanghai Morning Post has reported.

The case began when Jiang Xiaodong, an officer with the Pudong Traffic Police Detachment, stopped a modified passenger tricycle at Jinjing Road Station on Metro Line 12 last December, the report said.

The rider, Liu Fang, has a lower-limb disability and could barely get off the vehicle on her own. After temporarily impounding the tricycle, Jiang drove her home in a police car.

Jiang said he found the family of three living in a rented room of about 7 or 8 square meters, sharing a kitchen with others. Liu's younger son was lying in bed and unable to get up. Jiang bought her 20 steamed buns after she said the seizure had cut off her only source of income.

Liu and her elder son, surnamed Li, later continued carrying passengers on two tricycles. Officers kept enforcing the law, but also quietly bought the family food and gave them some money, the report said.

In April, both tricycles were seized at the same time. Liu went to the brigade and broke down, saying she could no longer survive.

Xu Liwei, an instructor at the brigade, said Liu also had breast cancer and showed officers a medical bill of just over 160 yuan, which she still could not afford.

Liu's family is from Zhumadian, Henan Province. She has had clubfoot since childhood, while both of her sons later developed illnesses and needed surgery, leaving the family heavily in debt. Her husband, surnamed Li, works in Shanghai as a mason but had been living at renovation sites and giving little support to the family, the report said.

After learning more about the family's difficulties, the brigade contacted a local company, Dandan Dawang, whose owner Zhang Haifeng agreed to create a position for Liu's elder son.

Zhang said the company already employed several people with disabilities and would let Li gradually learn bookkeeping after taking on some office work.

The company provides three meals a day, but Li usually eats breakfast there and returns home for dinner because he needs to cook for his mother and younger brother. The owner's wife often packs canteen food for him to bring back to the family, the report said.

The brigade also helped Liu connect with authorities in her hometown in Henan to secure disability allowances, serious illness assistance and other support. Local neighborhood officials contacted her husband and urged him to take responsibility. He has recently agreed to cover the family's rent, according to the report.

Li said his mother, with support from the neighborhood committee, has also begun earning some income by selling vegetables and eggs nearby and through a WeChat group.

Liu and Li recently returned to the police brigade with a silk banner and a handwritten thank-you letter. The letter said the family would live well and not let down the kindness they had received.