MOSCOW, December 13 (Sputnik) – A collision of vehicles on an expressway in southern China has killed 12 and injured three, according to Xinhua news agency.
The agency reports that the crash happened at around 2am on the Yuegan Expressway between Heyuan City in Guangdong and Ganzhou City in Jiangxi, when a truck carrying wood and equipped with faulty brakes overturned and collided with five vehicles driving behind it, which consequently caught fire.
China has the second most dangerous roads in the world, after India. According to statistics from the WHO, in the years up to 2009 China had 96,611 reported road deaths, and India 195,725. A report by the Economist in September attributed the high number of accidents to, among other reasons, the large number of new drivers, 15 million each year for the last decade, and non-compliance with existing safety laws.
At the beginning of this month the Chinese Ministry of Public Security began a nationwide campaign to stop road traffic violations after a collision in November of a truck and minibus killed 11 kindergarten children. It later transpired that the bus had been designed to only carry eight passengers.
