China shopping centre builds 'car park for women'

A shopping centre in China's Hebei province has built a car park with wider spaces that it says is designed especially to suit women drivers.

The women-only car park in Shijiazhuang city is also painted in pink and light purple to appeal to female tastes.

Official Wang Zheng told AFP news agency the car park was meant to cater to women's "strong sense of colour and different sense of distance".

The parking bays are one metre (3ft) wider than normal spaces, he said.

The Wanxiang-Tiancheng shopping centre had also "installed signs and security monitoring equipment that corresponded more to women's needs", he said.

The Global Times website says female parking attendants have been trained to help guide women drivers into their parking spaces. The bays also have extra lighting.

Driving in China is a dangerous activity, with more than 200 deaths in road accidents each day last year, AFP reports, citing police statistics.