Safety on the roads

The fatal traffic accidents in the past few days should sound an alarm about the country's lax traffic safety system and call for more actions to guarantee nationwide road safety for the upcoming travel peak in the country's countdown to the Lunar New Year.

An expressway viaduct collapsed in central Henan province on Friday morning after a lorry laden with fireworks exploded while crossing it. Ten people died and 11 others were injured. On the afternoon of the same day, a coach carrying 29 people went off the road and rolled 100 meters down a slope in southwestern Sichuan province, killing 11 people and injuring 18 others. It was followed by another deadly accident only hours later in which 18 people were killed and 34 others injured when an overloaded bus crashed into a deep valley in northwestern Gansu province.

This was not the end to such tragedies. A day later, a fatal accident in Guizhou province, in which an overloaded bus overturned, left 12 dead and 22 injured. On the same day, an overloaded vehicle tumbled down a valley in Daxin, in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, killing seven and injuring 12.