China fact of the day

Latest research shows that every day in China at least 300 people are killed in traffic accidents, ranking the country top in the world for both the death toll and the death rate. And the figure is accelerating by 10 per cent every year.

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Peter Gallagher points out the following:

That’s a huge rate of slaughter: 110,000 deaths and 560,000 injured on China’s roads last year. It’s more than 200 times the death rate from SARS (for example) which killed 349 people in China in the eight months from November, 2002 to July 2003 (WHO data), creating a much higher level of anxiety.

The Chinese have fewer cars on the road and drive at slower speeds. Nonetheless “driver negligence” catapults them to the top [bottom] of these rankings.