"The most serious problem is between the urban and rural areas," Li said.
He added, with a touch of understatement, "There are a lot of things that need to be improved."
Within the past year, the Chinese government has taken steps to address the problem, though no one expects an overnight cure. Li noted that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (
The Road and Traffic Safety Law, among other things, will provide for road signs to mark schools and hospitals. It also, for the first time, will establish that pedestrians have the right of way. Before, a pedestrian run over in an accident was often found at fault. The law will also set severe penalties for hit-and-run accidents, a major problem.
Still, changing the prevailing culture will be difficult, and enforcing those changes even more so. By one estimate, there are only 200,000 traffic officers in all of China, a country of 1.3 billion people.
Violations abound. Some flatbed trucks are so overloaded that their tenuously strapped goods list precariously to one side. Last year, a Chinese newspaper reported that one man made a healthy wage by photographing violations in order to collect reward money from the police.
Beside violations, ambulance services are spotty even in major cities, and people are often reluctant to call, since in the past the caller has often been responsible for the bill (The new traffic law changes this).
Nor has the average Chinese driver taken defensive driving to heart. Motorists routinely try to take left turns into four lanes of oncoming traffic in Beijing. Other motorists usually regard such a driver as a lead blocker and follow tightly behind in a vehicular wedge formation. On the outskirts of Beijing, many drivers, particularly in trucks, run red lights with abandon.
If there is any good news, it is that the number of fatalities fell by about 5,000 from 2002 to last year. The bad news, though, is that a possible reason for the drop was last year's SARS outbreak. For about two months, people simply stayed home. The roads were practically empty.
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