In a nod towards superstition, Shanghai's biggest taxi company has banned all its cabs with supposedly unlucky number plates from ferrying around students about to take the college entrance examination.

All cabs whose number plates end with the number "four," which shares the same pronunciation as failure in the Shanghai dialect, will not be used, announced Shanghai Dazhong Taxi Co Ltd.

This comes in the run-up to the examination, to be held from tomorrow until Thursday.

The company claimed that it is definitely not acting out of superstitious belief, but to give the students a boost.

It is reported that a large number of parents are booking cabs to send their children to the enrolment examination to ensure they arrive on time.

Many Chinese still think the examination is one of the most critical tests in one's life. This year, some 130,000 students will take the examination in Shanghai.

More than 20,000 cabs in the city have been booked for this year's event.

"Lots of parents refuse to take cabs with number plates which they consider unlucky, and we've seen many of them get angry at us because we have used them to carry their children in past years," Dazhong's taxi boss Zhao Leping was quoted as saying by Shanghai Youth Daily.

Shanghai NGS Taxi, another big cab company in the city, says 20 per cent of its bookings for the examination request the firm not to send "unlucky" vehicles.

A psychotherapist from Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, however, suggested that the companies' actions were not appropriate.

"Such action might turn a superstitious act into a widely embraced norm. Many more companies might have to follow such a rule in future to cater for their customers."

He said that properly caring for students would enhance their confidence and improve their mood.

The approaching examination is obviously drawing more and more attention from all walks of life in the city.

The Caoyang District branch of Dazhong Bus Company said recently that their buses will stop to pick up students who wave for a ride.

Dazhong Bus has allocated three special seats on each of its buses for these students. Once a student gets on the bus, anyone in those seats must give it to him or her.

Some students said they would not take a taxi during the examination.

"I will ride my bicycle as usual. It will not lessen my confidence if I do not take a taxi," said Wang Qi, a student from Shanghai Anshan High School.

(China Daily June 6, 2005)