Shanghai's driving schools will have to equip driver training cars with biometric devices to ensure that student drivers spend the required 55 hours practicing behind the wheel before they can get their licenses, Shanghai Evening Post reported Tuesday.

The devices, which electronically track how many hours each student has spent driving, represent an effort to strengthen enforcement of the often flouted 55-hour requirement.

The new devices require driving students to have their fingerprints and identification cards scanned each time they start up their training vehicle, said Xu Youlong, general secretary of the Shanghai Automobile Driver Training Trade Association.

The information is then forwarded to the local police and transportation departments for safe keeping.

Local police and transportation authorities are spearheading the initiative to stop driving schools from falsifying how much time students spend behind the wheel in order to circumvent the 55-hour requirement, according to the Shanghai Transportation Management Office, which oversees driving schools in the city.

"Students who have not logged enough time will not be allowed to take the driver's license test," said L Gaosheng, director of the Shanghai Transportation Management Office.

Local regulations require driving schools, where new drivers must go before taking the test, to record how much time each student spends practicing, and then submit the information to the authorities, L said.

However, relying on the schools and students to maintain proper records has left a loophole in the system. "There is the potential for fraud because schools can fake the practice times, and students usually sign the paper without double checking it," L told the Global Times.

When contracted Tuesday by a Global Times reporter posing a potential student, Wei Shoujun, a teacher from a driving school in Fengxian district, said that their students do not have to complete the 55-hour requirement to take the driver's license test.

A driver surnamed Cao, who obtained his license four years ago, told the Global Times that he spent no more than 40 hours training behind the wheel.

Xu said the new initiative is a response to the State-level authorities' demand to improve road safety after a high number of traffic accidents were reported last year.

Some 62,400 people died in 210,800 traffic accidents nationwide last year, according to the Ministry of Public Security. About 14 percent died in crashes in which at least one driver was speeding.

Xu said that each training car will also be equipped with a global positioning system device to track how far each student has driven.

"The police will decide a standard driving distance for students to meet, but the officials are stilling hashing out the details," he added.