Cars bearing the red-lettered plates of the People's Liberation Army and armed police, and ones indicating "state security" clearance, are increasingly familiar on the national capital's crowded roads, a Beijing newspaper reported on Friday.

They regularly flout traffic lights, no-turn signs and other road rules, and traffic police rarely risk pulling over drivers who effectively outrank them.

But in a rare public venting of one of ordinary Beijing residents' biggest gripes, the Market News lashed out at "privileged cars" and said many of the official plates were fake or illegally obtained.

"The masses of special privilege cars barging around and driving as they please has long been a chronic ailment in urban traffic," the paper said in an editorial comment.

The paper -- which is run by the People's Daily, -- suggested that allowing privileged drivers to use bus-only lanes and defy traffic lights with impunity violated the rule of law.

"The key problem here is there is no exercise of equality before the law," the paper said. "Traffic police all know that punishing a privileged car gets a warning, and letting them go makes you a model."

In the United States, the paper noted, government cars display signs "not as a symbol of special status, but on the contrary so the public can exercise oversight," the paper said.

The paper printed what it said was a widely-circulated Internet complaint from a driver fed up with military and state security-approved cars scoffing at road rules.

The immunity given to China's state elite was encouraging other drivers to buy fake plates for as little as 300 yuan (about $40), it said, describing a spot near the rising 2008 Olympic Games stadiums that specialises in selling them.

"It's because the genuine privileged cars are so piggish that these bogus plates dare to suggest they have powerful connections," the report quoted one driver as saying.