長安街金色護欄遭撞擊後盡顯威力
A car went to battle with a golden railing the other day in Beijing. The railing won.
不久前，一輛轎車撞上了北京長安街上的金色護欄。護欄完好無損。At around lunchtime Tuesday, a driver was heading along Beijing's iconic Chang'an Avenue near Jianguomen, not far from Tiananmen Square, in a Volkswagen Magotan sedan. Suddenly, the car got a flat and crashed into a traffic railing in the middle of the road, according to the Beijing Morning Post.
中國媒體對護欄的抗衝擊性能感到驚訝。據《北京晨報》報道，本週二中午時分，在距天安門廣場不遠的建國門附近，一名司機駕駛大衆邁騰(Volkswagen Magotan)轎車沿長安街行駛時突然爆胎，撞上了路中間的交通護欄。Unfortunately for the driver, this was not the ordinary white fencing that local governments in many Chinese towns install to discourage bad behavior by motorists, such as unexpected U-turns and abrupt lurches into oncoming traffic.
對司機來說，很不幸的是，這並不是在中國很多城鎮都可以看到的普通白色護欄。這種白色護欄主要是爲了防止隨意調頭、突然駛入逆向車道等不良駕駛行爲。
The gold-painted railing, which was installed in April and is engraved with lotus flowers, was made from special anti-collision materials that rendered it almost impervious to damage.
今年4月份安裝的長安街金色護欄雕有蓮花圖案，由特殊防撞材料製成，幾乎不會受到任何損害。The same couldn't be said for the car. Images uploaded to the Internet show its left side so torn up it looked like it had been put through some giant paper shredder. A spokeswoman for Volkswagen in China said Thursday the company would look into the incident.
撞上護欄的這輛轎車就沒有這麼幸運了。上傳到網上的照片顯示，這輛車的左側受損嚴重，看起來就像是從某個巨型碎紙機中穿過。大衆在中國的發言人週四表示，公司將對這起事故進行調查。Police told Beijing Morning Post reporters that one of the bars of the railing was slightly bent, but that it was hardly noticeable. The rail did move out of place as a result of the collision, but not by much, the newspaper reported.
警方對《北京晨報》的記者稱，金色護欄中的一根欄杆略有彎曲，但幾乎看不出來。該報稱，這次撞擊導致護欄移位，但移動並不大。Beijing's City Police Bureau didn't respond immediately to questions from China Real Time Thursday about the condition of the car, or of its driver.
北京市公安局未立即迴應《中國實時報》(China Real Time)週四提出的有關肇事車輛及司機現狀的問題。Many Chinese netizens were surprised by the apparent magical powers of the fence. Others, though, said the incident brought into question just how safe cars are on Chinese roads.
許多中國網民都對該護欄的“神威”大感吃驚。不過，也有一些人說，這起事故引發了這樣一個問題：在中國道路上行駛的汽車安全性如何？'What's more important for public safety? Powerful fences or solid cars? This is totally a case of 'putting the cart before the horse,' lawyer Dai Heping wrote on his verified account on Sina Corp.'s Twitter-like Weibo.
律師戴和平在他的新浪微博上寫道：“車和欄杆哪個堅固對人們安全有意義？本末倒置啊！”The very public display of strength of the golden railings has spotlighted its manufacturer, Special Use Industrial Co., which is based in Inner Mongolia.
“黃金護欄”大顯身手，使其生產商、位於內蒙古的包頭北方專用機械有限責任公司(Special Use Industrial Co.)受到關注。An administrative staffer at the company who answered the telephone Thursday who would only give his surname as Li said it had been supplying fencing in the Tiananmen area of Beijing for 12 years.
該公司一名管理人員週四接聽了記者電話，稱公司爲北京市天安門地區供應護欄已有長達12年的歷史；該人士僅透露自己姓李（音）。He declined to say who placed the order or why, though he said that the shock-resistant railings are capable of withstanding terrorist or violent attacks. One three-meter stretch of fencing, for example, weighs more than 200 kilograms, he said.
他並未透露是誰下的訂單及其原因，不過他說，抗撞護欄能夠承受得住恐怖主義或暴力攻擊。他說，例如一個三米長的護欄，重達200多公斤。China Real Time expects to see more of these golden railings dividing streets around China in the months to come: the country has been increasingly jittery following attacks such as the one at Tiananmen Square last October, in which a driver crashed a Jeep in front of the Forbidden City, killing two tourists in the subsequent explosion.
《中國實時報》欄目預計，未來幾個月中國各地街頭將出現更多這樣的金色護欄：在發生了去年10月份天安門廣場衝撞事件這類攻擊之後，這個國家越來越緊張。當時，一人駕駛一輛吉普(Jeep)汽車在故宮前面撞毀，隨後發生爆炸並導致兩名遊客死亡。
