Article: China tops road-death table

Seth Brundle

More bad PR this week for China...

from http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/mhojeyauojql/

China tops road-death table
21/03/2008 - 10:13:25
China has won the unwelcome title of having the world’s deadliest roads, for the 11th year in a row.

The country suffers 5.1 deaths for every 10,000 motor vehicles, almost three times the toll in Britain.

A report by the state-run Xinhua News Agency says government statistics show nearly 82,000 road deaths in China last year.

The world average was two deaths per 10,000 vehicles. The UK figure is 1.5

Private car ownership in China has soared along with the country’s economic boom. But overloaded vehicles, reckless driving and poor road conditions are still common and frequently lead to fatal crashes.

cashmni1

I wonder what the Irish average is. Iff the UK is 1.5 what are the odds that Ireland is higher ?

niceirishfella

I was in China last year on Business and they drive like LOONEYS!

KAMAKAZEE STYLEEEEEEEE - They drive like they are in bumping cars and everyones trying to avoid hitting each other - and it works to a degree (in the cities) but when it goes wrong - its road carnage.
They have no value on human life - a chinesse bloke told me that himself. As for vehicle testing - the state of some of the large trucks out there - there simply cannot be a DOE vehicle testing system in place as i witnessed HGV vehicles on the road at night with zero taillights, brake lights and maybe just 1 headlamp. And as for emmissions - China simply dont care about Emmisions as far as i could see.
Re;the cars - well - any of the ones the make themselves are rubbish anyways - like the taxis in Shanghai - made under licence from VW - its the mk1 passat shape.
I saw one that had a head-on out on a motorway, and it crumpled like a "cut and shut". The backseats were nearly up in the front passenger footwell. A Deadfull sight altogether.

its an amazing place to visit tho' - a real eye opener.

NIF

Niall1234

Rubbish, according to various media scources we are by far the worst in the world :rolleyes:

Stephen

niceirishfella: Me too, your experience sounds exactly the same as mine Its every man for himself on the roads over there. There's a toll road on the way out of Shanghai towards Suzhou and its hilarious. There's about 8 lanes of traffic in each direction converging into a few tollbooths and everyone tries to force their way to the front, no matter what they're driving. :eek:
Those VW Santana taxis are terrifying yokes. Every single one of them I was in had more than half a million kilometres on it and no suspension worth mentioning!

In short: I'm not bloody surprised.

green123

cashmni1 wrote: »

I wonder what the Irish average is. Iff the UK is 1.5 what are the odds that Ireland is higher ?

definitely higher in ireland, uk drivers are known to be among the best in the world.

yawtin

82000/1,300,000,000*10000= 0.631
where did you get your figure from?

unkel

yawtin wrote: »

82000/1,300,000,000*10000= 0.631
where did you get your figure from?

82000 road deaths is indeed very low for a country with 1.3 billion inhabitants. But you do need to read the OP again though. The comparison is not per 10,000 people (what you correctly calculated to be about 0.6) but per 10,000 vehicles

Since there are only about 5 or 6 cars in the whole of China, the statistics are rather worse, I'm afraid

RoundyMooney

The fact that they all barge around in pos copies of european/american/asian motors, with all the structural integrity of a wet copy of yesterdays Times, doesn't help either.



Chinese "Matiz"...

Andrewf20

Rudy hell, that Merc lookalike is a handsome thing. Only a trained eye would spot the difference between it and the real deal. My @rse. The state of it.

RoundyMooney

I have many examples of crap copies somewhere, the mind boggles...

jhegarty

kbannon wrote: »

But overloaded vehicles, reckless driving and poor road conditions are still common and frequently lead to fatal crashes.

You lie... why do you lie... we all know 100% of road deaths are caused by speeding.... do you not listen to the government at all....

Fey!

In Beijing the cyclists cross 6 moving lanes of traffic without even looking at whats coming!

keefg

A Chinese guy I used to work with told me how he got his full driving licence (in Shanghai)......he couldn't drive to save his life so his dad, who has a high ranking government job , arranged for him to have his driving test in a car park.

After his dad gave the driving tester a brown envelope, this guy was just told to show that he could make the car go backwards & forwards.

Well done! You have passed your test

And with just those precious few moments of experience in that car park, his dad gave him a nice new car and he was on his way.

Still, it's easier than that in Ireland to get on the road.

unkel

keefg wrote: »

his dad gave the driving tester a brown envelope

Corruption in China just like here? :eek:

Seth Brundle

unkel wrote: »

Corruption in China just like here? :eek:

I have a friend who spends quite a lot of time in China and apparently they are worse, much worse than FF TDs!

wil

If China has double the death rate of the UK in this particular analysis then that puts them in the same league as Ireland. Nothing to be proud of.
Both China and Ireland have many similarities, rapid increase in wealth and car ownership (from a very low one) after being one of the poorest economies, accompanied with rampant materialism and little more than token gestures to safety
China is just following suit, perhaps a decade behind.
It is a farcical to cite corrupt licence dealings in China when 1 - you didnt even need a proper licence to drive here until a few months ago (is that even being enforced?) and
2- our government in their brilliance have given away free licences to thousands and so compounding the incompetence on our roads.

Several years ago headlines on the national papers stated that the EU was threatening to step in if we didnt demonstrate a vast improvement in our road safety stats.
Years later we arent much better and even the premier EU road safety primo (name escapes me - Dutch bloke) stated Ireland was the only European country that had shown little or no improvement over the last few years and put us in the same league as Turkey.

If citing stats about developing countries where the vast majority will never own their own car, we need to take a stark look at ourselves.
When our stats compare favorably with the UK, then we will be a shining example.

Guy:Incognito

wil wrote: »

I

Several years ago headlines on the national papers stated that the EU was threatening to step in if we didnt demonstrate a vast improvement in our road safety stats.
Years later we arent much better and even the premier EU road safety primo (name escapes me - Dutch bloke) stated Ireland was the only European country that had shown little or no improvement over the last few years and put us in the same league as Turkey.e.

Course we are better. The numbers might be similar but the number of cars has gone up by a huge amount. The percentage of deaths to cars isthe figure that matters more than the actual number of deaths. Your always going to have idiots killing themselves and others, just like in every country, but as the numbers of cars has gone up, the numbers of deaths havnt.

wil wrote: »

2- our government in their brilliance have given away free licences to thousands and so compounding the incompetence on our roads.
.

Your talking about a certain number of people 30 years ago. It's not an ongoing thing.

TBH you sound a bit like the papers, fudging numbers and implying things.

Stephen

unkel wrote: »

Corruption in China just like here? :eek:

At least when they get caught in China they get punished! Usually pretty severely too. I remember when I was there some city official in Shanghai got caught taking bribes and ended up with something like 15 years in prison!

Guy:Incognito

Stephen wrote: »

At least when they get caught in China they get punished! Usually pretty severely too. I remember when I was there some city official in Shanghai got caught taking bribes and ended up with something like 15 years in prison!

Death penalty ftw!

wil

TBH I dont sound anything like the papers. Very few of the journalists who write on this issue have a clue, even some of the major motoring organisations spout the same old tripe. Apart from Rosemary Connoly, Derek Davis and about 2 others, they would be better off not commenting.
Fudging and implying is what sucessive governments have been doing for a long time now rather than doing something constructive to deal with the problem.

The same few 10s of thousands of luckybag licence holders from Gerry Ryans age and up now have their own children who they are "teaching" and perpetuating both the attitudes and incompetence that they grew up with. Neither of my parents did a test, but luckily I didnt learn to drive from them.
Such is the attitude, some even considered the option of issueing more lucky bag licences to ease the backlog.

In the past decade France halved their death rates, while we remained static. As cars become safer, with built in protection, ABS etc, and roads have improved dramatically, the one thing that hasnt improved perceptably here is the driver and driving attitude.
So statistically we have gone down the American route, improving everything except the driver. They used to have statistically the safest roads in the world, but because they thought technology was the way to go, they have fallen well down the leagues.
We should be looking to Britain and Sweden for direction.
The one real and obvious difference between a British driver and an Irish one is attitude - at every level - from learner to experienced, attitude is totally different. We may have better roads, and bigger safer cars, but many here have yet to learn to drive. Unfortunately the sometimes laudable Irish indifference to rules does not translate well to our roads.

Irrespective of the type of statisitic or damned lie used, actual number of deaths will never be irrelevent if you, your friends or family are one of that number.
If we acheived the same statistics as Britain, there might be 2000 people still alive from the past 10 years.
Incompetence, inaction or death sentence, the results are quite the same

Stekelly wrote: »

Course we are better. The numbers might be similar but the number of cars has gone up by a huge amount. The percentage of deaths to cars isthe figure that matters more than the actual number of deaths. Your always going to have idiots killing themselves and others, just like in every country, but as the numbers of cars has gone up, the numbers of deaths havnt.



Your talking about a certain number of people 30 years ago. It's not an ongoing thing.

TBH you sound a bit like the papers, fudging numbers and implying things.

Scottie99

Irish people and roundabouts!:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

galwaytt

wil wrote: »

Several years ago headlines on the national papers stated that the EU was threatening to step in if we didnt demonstrate a vast improvement in our road safety stats.
Years later we arent much better and even the premier EU road safety primo (name escapes me - Dutch bloke) stated Ireland was the only European country that had shown little or no improvement over the last few years and put us in the same league as Turkey.

If citing stats about developing countries where the vast majority will never own their own car, we need to take a stark look at ourselves.
When our stats compare favorably with the UK, then we will be a shining example.

By requoting newspapers, you sounding exactly like one - and a poor redtop at that. The EU wouldn't 'step in' if the streets were awash with blood, let alone grey, instead of pink, licences. I cite the EU's position on VRT as another example of talk, and cheap talk at that. They haven't the spine to organise a troop to defend starving millions in Darfur or prevent genocide on their own front door - in sight of Dutch personnel, even, in Bosnia - so to think they give anything a flying fig about our licences............gimmeabreak.......

France did indeed improve their road casualty rate - but there again their standards were appalling - they only way was up........

Britain - arguably the best drivers in the world - but was down to good policing - the Traffic Division over there, on both 4 & 2 wheels are world-renowned, and their driving manuals are well worth getting. However, in the last number of years, standards have slipped, and it has been almost singlehandedly down to the replacement of overt Traffic officers, with technology. Cameras, and other devices, don't detect drunk, dangerous, careless or uninsured driving - all these are on the increase.

How about the Netherlands - the country that first introduced Gatso's ? They have got the art of high speed camera dodging down to an art now.........the term Concertina driving being used to describe the act of violent acceleration and braking between cameras, by a posse of drivers..........you can just imagine it.......flat out, brake hard (ABS helps), camera, trundle by........flat out again.........and so it goes on.

Here it's stupidity, and the knowledge that it'll be rarely, if ever, be punished, on truly appalling roads, that cause our statistics. They're not dying on the M50, or new N6 West. Nope, it's the R roads...........and laser and camera vans don't, can't, go there..............

sesswhat

cashmni1 wrote: »

I wonder what the Irish average is. Iff the UK is 1.5 what are the odds that Ireland is higher ?

1.59 it seems.

Over the last ten years much progress has been made in reducing the number of fatalities and serious injuries on our roads. In 1996, the fatality rate per million registered vehicles was 338. By 2006, the rate had fallen to 159 per million registered vehicles.

yawtin

Ok I did some research, most of China's road death were somehow related to overload.

And their style of driving... Once I was in the car with my dad in a remote countryside. The road was of great quality and there were very few cars. A very old van passed us out. Dad thought that was losing face for him so he raised the speed. The two of them end-up racing. I was really scared as the speed limit was 60km but they were at least 90km

We just have to learn to take them with a light heart:
http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=joke_best&MsgID=30055

http://pop.pcpop.com/topic/246.html

Victor

Stekelly wrote: »

Course we are better. The numbers might be similar but the number of cars has gone up by a huge amount. The percentage of deaths to cars isthe figure that matters more than the actual number of deaths.

No, the important numbers are deaths and injuries per capita.

If there were more guns on the street, would you say is OK to have more gun deaths? Change 'gun' to 'car'. Understandable yes, acceptable no.