Chinese car park makes space for women only

(Jose Gil)

A shopping centre in China has opened a car park that offers women drivers bigger-than-normal parking spaces to accommodate what it sees as their special needs.

Wang Zheng, an official at the Wanxiang Tiancheng shopping centre in Hebei province's Shijiazhuang city, told AFP Monday the women-only parking lot aimed to address women's "strong sense of colour and different sense of distance."

The spaces are "one metre wider than normal parking spaces," Wang said, adding that the mall had "installed signs and security monitoring equipment that corresponded more to women's needs."

Driving in China is notoriously dangerous, with nearly 73,500 people killed in road accidents last year, or just over 200 fatalities per day, according to police statistics.