OPINION> Commentary
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OPINION> Commentary
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Killer roads in rural areas
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-10 08:06 The death of a girl in Zhengzhou reveals the safety problems in rural roads, says an article in Beijing News. The following is an excerpt: Last Monday, a 9-year-old girl on her way to school was run over by a truck as she tried to drag her shoes off the street after they had stuck to the melted blacktop. It is said that this blacktop street was just completed late last year, but since this summer, it has been quite common for people to see their shoes sticking to the street. We can see from the picture of this road in the newspaper that it is greasy and wet and makes it easy for people to leave footprints on it. But local transport authorities argued that this blacktop road is completely up to the grade and is built according to the national standards for third-level roads. The appearance of the greasy condition is due to its over-use by trucks and to the current hot weather. They did not agree with the advice by some experts that the road should be re-paved with blacktop. It is horrific to hear that this killer road is "up to the grade". If it is really built according to the national standards for third-level roads, it means there are many more roads of this type in the rural regions of China and in the scorching summer days, they may take the lives of people at any moment. We should seriously investigate into this killer road to see whether it meets the standards. If it really meets the standards, it is necessary to take the death of this girl as an opportunity to review and improve the road construction standards and make an overhaul of all the roads in the rural regions that may contain risks. If it does not meet the standards, the government should hold the builders to be accountable for the tragedy and check into the possible corruptions. Since the launch of the new countryside campaign by the central government, many rural roads have been built. But the problem is that these new roads are usually built at a level lower than the urban roads. And it is still rare to see those facilities that are common in urban roads such as traffic lights, pedistrian crossings, traffic surveillances, and crossover marks. Of course, it is not practical to build all the rural roads at the same level as the urban roads due to the vast size of the rural network, but the security requirements should be the same. (China Daily 06/10/2008 page8) |
