Chinese food app Meituan tells couriers to pass road safety test before they can deliver
Workers will undergo in-house training and will be retested every two months
Food couriers with a popular Chinese delivery app are being told to undergo in-house traffic safety training and pass a test before they can hit the road.
Meituan will also issue regular safety reminders, and every two months its couriers will be retested via the app, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Friday. If they fail to answer the questions correctly they will be retrained.
Screenshots of the app show the road safety test must be completed within 90 minutes. It includes questions about the company’s safety slogan, and the correct conduct for traffic signals.
The move follows a series of traffic accidents involving food couriers in China, where delivery services are growing in popularity. Some 150 million people were using online catering services as of June last year, state-run newspaper China Daily reported.
Shanghai traffic police data showed there were 76 road accidents involving food deliverers in the first half of the year – an average of one every 2½ days, the Legal Evening News reported.
In Nanjing, police said there were 3,242 accidents involving food couriers in the first half of the year, killing three people and injuring 2,473.
Meituan also gave 10,000 of its workers in Beijing food courier bags with the words “Be courteous at pedestrian crossings”, according to the Beijing Youth Daily report.
A company representative said the reminder was not just for its food couriers but for everyone in the city.
