China accounts for a fifth of road fatalities in the world. Why?
- 15 people died and dozens more were hurt when a truck smashed into 31 vehicles at a northwest China toll booth recently
- Mountain roads, rapid growth in motorway network, design flaw, high number of cars, new drivers, and presence of heavy vehicles make for a deadly mix
China’s high traffic fatality rate is back in the spotlight after 15 people died and dozens more were hurt in a horrific pile-up on a motorway exit ramp in northwest China’s Lanzhou city.
A semi-trailer slammed into 31 vehicles at a toll booth on Sunday along a 17km (10 mile) downhill section of the Lanzhou-Lintao motorway on which more than 40 people lost their lives over the nine years between 2004 and 2013, according to local media reports.
The driver of the truck, identified as Li Feng, said his vehicle’s brakes failed as he was leaving the motorway, the state-owned Xinhua news agency reported. A police investigation into the accident is continuing.
The massive smash added to a road traffic death rate that keeps growing as China’s motorway network – now the world’s longest at 136,000km – expands.
According to a 2015 report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), China had over 104 traffic-related deaths for every 100,000 motor vehicles, compared with 33 in the Americas and 101 in Southeast Asia.
The rapid growth in the number of vehicles, drivers and the size of motorways in China has brought safety problems and design flaws, experts and officials say. Some of the big casualties on Chinese roads stem from the exploitation of loopholes in regulations, according to them.