With the soaring growth in the national economy and an
ever-growing number of motor vehicles on the road, China is
experiencing a huge upsurge in traffic accidents and
fatalities.
According to Ministry of Public Security statistics, casualties
caused by traffic accidents stood at 109,363 in 2002, or 78.5
percent of those killed in all accidents across China.
Traffic accidents, with 75,841 in the first nine months this
year, have become the top killer among various accidents across the
nation, officials said.
Traffic Administration officials under the ministry said the
main cause for these accidents is that drivers did not pay
attention to traffic rules and regulations.
A recently released finding disclosed that nearly half of the
drivers -- polled at entrances or exits of several expressways in
Beijing and Shanghai -- said they had dozed off while driving.
With instrument tests and questionnaires involving 516 drivers,
the survey was conducted jointly in March by the administration and
Sanofi-Synthelabo Group, a large French pharmaceutical company.
Results indicated 24 percent of the respondents had driven when
they felt "really exhausted" while 10 percent had dozed while
driving on the day they were polled.
Instrument tests showed that 20 percent of those expressing
exhaustion took a longer time to react due to fatigue, which is
believed to be a major hidden danger for traffic accidents.
It is reported that according to incomplete statistics, the
number of traffic accidents triggered by fatigue is as much as
one-fifth of the total number in Beijing.
Conversely, a lack of driver awareness of this danger amplifies
the risks on the road.
A veteran taxi driver surnamed Song told China Daily
that he normally feels sleepy at around midnight. That's even
though his working hours are from 10 a.m. through 2 a.m., meaning
he spends at least two hours driving every day while feeling
sleepy.
The number of motor vehicles in Beijing exceeds 2 million with
more than 3 million people getting drivers licenses as of this
September, and the total is still on the rise.
Statistics released by the administration show that the number
of traffic accidents across the country totaled 773,137 in 2002,
with a year-on-year increase of 6.3 percent over that in 1986.
But the current poor traffic safety is greatly involved with the
nation's economic and social development, Duan Liren, a traffic
project expert, was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency.
Duan holds that the robust economic development and the
improvement of people's living standards, along with the associated
accelerating rise in population and the numbers of vehicles and
drivers, have led to frequent accidents.
Internationally, many countries like the United States, Britain
and Japan also experienced such a period after World War II, when
the number of traffic accidents increased sharply.
(China Daily November 17, 2003)