The Ministry of Public Security announced on Wednesday that from
January to March there were 117,220 traffic accidents nationwide,
resulting in 118,887 injuries, 23,411 deaths and the loss of 490.0
million yuan (US$59.0 million) worth of property.
The number of accidents fell 14 percent and deaths were down by
7 percent, although the number of injuries climbed 14 percent
year-on-year.
Drunk driving and violations of traffic laws led to more than
3,200 road deaths, officials said.
Although road use spiked during the
Spring Festival period, said officials, deaths from accidents
involving public transportation in that period declined as a result
of improved traffic management.
In 2004, a total of 517,889 road accidents claimed the lives of
107,077 people and injured another 480,864, causing 2.4 billion
yuan (US$287.9 million) in property damage.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, a senior official from the State
Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
(AQSIQ) confirmed that the government has begun tightening
inspections of passenger vehicles with more than nine seats.
Vice Director Han Yi of AQSIQ's Quality Control Department said
that the nationwide quality overhaul will target larger vehicles
because most road accidents are related to passenger
transportation.
In 2004, 852 people were killed in 55 severe road accidents, or
those in which more than 10 people die. Of the total, 32 accidents
or 58.2 percent, were related to larger passenger vehicles,
according to the Ministry of Public Security.
AQSIQ has decided to enforce recalls of defective vehicles with
more than nine seats by 2006, Han told representatives of more than
60 manufacturers. The group was gathered in Beijing for a two-day
international symposium on auto recalls.
The announcement came in the wake of a recent spate of major
accidents involving commercial and school buses.
This Monday, 40 passengers were injured on the Qinghai-Tibet
highway when the bus they were in overturned. The 42-passenger
vehicle, en route from Chengdu to Lhasa, was carrying 60 passengers
at the time of the accident. No one was killed.
On Tuesday in Quxian, southwest China's Sichuan
Province, an overloaded truck hit 15 students on their way home
from school, leaving one dead and 14 others injured, one of them
critically.
Also on Tuesday, three people were confirmed dead with one more
seriously injured when a minibus ran into a dumpster in Yinchuan,
the capital of northwest China's Ningxia
Hui Autonomous Region.
(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2005)