Road accidents claimed 8,198 lives in China in May, up 10.4 percent over the same month last year, the Ministry of Public Security reported Friday.

According to the report, China's traffic police handled 35,036 cases of road accidents in May, down 31.8 percent year-on-year. These accidents caused direct property losses amounting to 180 million yuan (about US$21.69 million) and injured 34,092 people.

Bad driving was blamed for 94.3 percent of the road accidents, 93 percent of the deaths and 95 percent of the injuries in May, said an official of the Administration of Communications under the ministry.

According to the administration, a total of 216,478 road accidents happened in the first five months, which claimed 41,098 lives, injured 172,742 people and caused direct property losses of1.15 billion yuan (about US$138.6 million).

The number of road accidents in the first five months dropped by 21.5 percent from the same period of last year, but the death toll rose by 2 percent, said the official.

China officially put into effect its first road traffic safety law on May 1.
 
(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2004)