China's traffic fatalities 'more than reported'
Source: Agencies |
January 7, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA is struggling to ease the frustrating gridlock caused by millions of new cars hitting its roads, but it may be underestimating another downside to its economic growth: a steady rise in traffic deaths.
The number of traffic fatalities may be more than double the number police have been reporting, a new study suggests.
The researchers hope their suggested alternative numbers may prompt authorities to give more attention to promoting traffic safety.
"Road deaths are a crucially important and unrecognized problem," said the study's co-authors Timothy Baker and Susan Baker, professors at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States.
"In order to be able to measure progress one needs good data," they added.
In China, where an increasing number of people are able to afford cars, many hit the streets with little more than cursory training. Drivers often whip round corners even when pedestrians have the right of way, and few cyclists wear helmets.
Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for people age 45 and younger in China.
The popularity of cars as a status symbol has clogged the streets of China's capital, Beijing, and led officials last month to start applying the brakes to car sales with a yearly quota on new car registrations.
Still, American and Chinese researchers have long been puzzled by what looked like a paradox: Even as the number of cars on the road was increasing, traffic deaths were apparently going down.
The China Automotive Technology Research Center said last year that traffic deaths dropped 28 percent from 2004 to 2009, with 67,000 deaths in 2009.
Other researchers questioned how such numbers could be accurate. In 2006, they note in the study, the 6.8 per 100,000 death rate reported by China was far lower than in other developing and middle-income countries, which typically register around 21.5 and 19.5 deaths per 100,000.
The study's researchers, from Johns Hopkins and China's Central South University, compared police data with death certificates logged between 2002 and 2007. Police statistics showed a 27 percent decrease in traffic fatalities, while those recorded by doctors increased by 8 percent.
In 2007, for instance, police logged 81,649 deaths, compared to 221,135 listed on death certificates, said the study, whose findings were released this week.
China overtook the United States in 2009 as the world's biggest car market, with sales surging 45 percent to 13.6 million vehicles.
The number of traffic fatalities may be more than double the number police have been reporting, a new study suggests.
The researchers hope their suggested alternative numbers may prompt authorities to give more attention to promoting traffic safety.
"Road deaths are a crucially important and unrecognized problem," said the study's co-authors Timothy Baker and Susan Baker, professors at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States.
"In order to be able to measure progress one needs good data," they added.
In China, where an increasing number of people are able to afford cars, many hit the streets with little more than cursory training. Drivers often whip round corners even when pedestrians have the right of way, and few cyclists wear helmets.
Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for people age 45 and younger in China.
The popularity of cars as a status symbol has clogged the streets of China's capital, Beijing, and led officials last month to start applying the brakes to car sales with a yearly quota on new car registrations.
Still, American and Chinese researchers have long been puzzled by what looked like a paradox: Even as the number of cars on the road was increasing, traffic deaths were apparently going down.
The China Automotive Technology Research Center said last year that traffic deaths dropped 28 percent from 2004 to 2009, with 67,000 deaths in 2009.
Other researchers questioned how such numbers could be accurate. In 2006, they note in the study, the 6.8 per 100,000 death rate reported by China was far lower than in other developing and middle-income countries, which typically register around 21.5 and 19.5 deaths per 100,000.
The study's researchers, from Johns Hopkins and China's Central South University, compared police data with death certificates logged between 2002 and 2007. Police statistics showed a 27 percent decrease in traffic fatalities, while those recorded by doctors increased by 8 percent.
In 2007, for instance, police logged 81,649 deaths, compared to 221,135 listed on death certificates, said the study, whose findings were released this week.
China overtook the United States in 2009 as the world's biggest car market, with sales surging 45 percent to 13.6 million vehicles.
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