After a nationwide campaign to crack down on child trafficking by posting pictures of beggars online, many Beijingers are now using the same tactic to capture rule-breaking drivers.

A netizen named "Blue Sand" on Monday posted 22 images of cars and trucks violating traffic rules on his Sina micro blog and called for residents to follow suit with their own snapshots.

The blogger wrote that he was prompted to act after witnessing vehicles frequently ignore traffic lights in his community, including at an intersection by a primary school. With micro blogs exerting an increasing influence on Chinese society, "Blue Sand" decided to help out the city's transport authorities by exposing violators with photos on the Internet.

In less than two days, he has collected hundreds of followers. As of Tuesday afternoon, fellow Sina users had made almost 200 entries about the campaign.

"We hope civilian campaigns that fight child trafficking and traffic violations will serve not only as monitors on society but also as reminders to the traffic management bureaus," wrote another micro blogger on Sina.

The latest netizen campaign has received support from the capital's traffic management chiefs. However, the authorities are unable to introduce policies to encourage civilian snapshots due to potential legal problems, according to an official with the traffic management bureau quoted by Beijing News.

"Whether the street photos taken by netizens can be used as evidence by judicial officials to punish traffic violators is still controversial," said Wang Lei, a lawyer with Jinboda Law Firm in Zhengzhou, Henan province. "However, there's no law against the act of taking pictures of cars and drivers and there are no problems with privacy exposure as it's no more than a demonstration of facts."

"Blue Sand", the initiator of the campaign, said he will continue to post photos on his micro blog to deter potential traffic violators and to provide clues to the police, Beijing News reported.