CHEN VILLAGE, China — Few motorists in any country brighten at the sight of tollbooths ahead. In China, which is building more toll roads than any other country in the world, legions of drivers are trying almost anything to avoid them. In Chongqing, a sprawling municipality in central China, so many owners of private cars and trucks are using fraudulent toll-exempt military plates that one toll highway has estimated its annual losses at roughly 10 million yuan, or $1.2 million.
In March a driver outfitted his vehicle like an ambulance, with flashing lights and an emergency response phone number painted on the side. He then raced through a highway tollbooth as if rushing to a hospital, until the police arrested him.
For centuries, commoner and collector have waged a volatile contest in China that has occasionally toppled dynasties but never quite been resolved. Leaders of the current dynasty, the Communist Party, are worried enough about angry peasants that they lifted the centuries-old agriculture tax as a populist gesture.
Tolls are another matter. By 2020, if all goes as planned, China will have completed almost 53,000 miles of expressways, a network roughly equivalent to the Interstate System in the United States. China considers expressways crucial to maintaining its economic growth and developing its western and interior provinces.
But the cost is so exorbitant that China is financing much of the system with tolls that are, by Chinese standards, pricey.
Two people who should know are Mr. Wang and Mr. Gu. The two men — who were nervous about divulging their first names to a snooping foreigner — are posted at a dingy intersection in this farming village in Hebei Province.
Not far away is a highway tollbooth. Every day cars and heavy trucks, as steady and determined as a trail of ants, try to skip the toll by cutting through the village on a narrow road.
Mr. Wang, 65, and Mr. Gu, 58, try to send them back. They say the tollbooth operator is paying the village a monthly fee to help crack down on toll jumpers. For its part the village is trying to stop heavy trucks from ruining its roads. The two men regulate traffic with a long, crooked stick that goes up and down like a crude crossing barrier.
In March a driver outfitted his vehicle like an ambulance, with flashing lights and an emergency response phone number painted on the side. He then raced through a highway tollbooth as if rushing to a hospital, until the police arrested him.
For centuries, commoner and collector have waged a volatile contest in China that has occasionally toppled dynasties but never quite been resolved. Leaders of the current dynasty, the Communist Party, are worried enough about angry peasants that they lifted the centuries-old agriculture tax as a populist gesture.
Tolls are another matter. By 2020, if all goes as planned, China will have completed almost 53,000 miles of expressways, a network roughly equivalent to the Interstate System in the United States. China considers expressways crucial to maintaining its economic growth and developing its western and interior provinces.
But the cost is so exorbitant that China is financing much of the system with tolls that are, by Chinese standards, pricey.
Two people who should know are Mr. Wang and Mr. Gu. The two men — who were nervous about divulging their first names to a snooping foreigner — are posted at a dingy intersection in this farming village in Hebei Province.
Not far away is a highway tollbooth. Every day cars and heavy trucks, as steady and determined as a trail of ants, try to skip the toll by cutting through the village on a narrow road.
Mr. Wang, 65, and Mr. Gu, 58, try to send them back. They say the tollbooth operator is paying the village a monthly fee to help crack down on toll jumpers. For its part the village is trying to stop heavy trucks from ruining its roads. The two men regulate traffic with a long, crooked stick that goes up and down like a crude crossing barrier.
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