Opinion / Liu Shinan
A road ethics lesson for drivers
By Liu Shinan (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-16 06:58
Twenty young lives perished in an instant, as the teenagers, bursting
with youthful spirit, greeted sunrise with their routine morning
exercises on a rural road.
Nine hundred students of the No 2 Middle School of Qinyuan County, Shanxi
Province, were jogging on the road when a heavy-duty truck dashed along
"like it was mad" and "swept down" a group of students, killing 18,
including a teacher, instantly and injuring 21. Three of the injured died
soon after being sent to hospital.
The tragedy shocked the nation and sparked furious outcries among
Internet communities.
Many critics directed their anger at local educational authorities for
their negligence of school safety. They questioned the practice of
letting students do physical exercises on public roads, blaming the
authorities for failing to provide an exercise ground for students.
The school and the government departments concerned certainly should take
some of the blame. The problem of school safety has become increasingly
serious recently, with a rise in the number of fatalities.
In these incidents, school authorities were definitely culpable, because
of their poor management of the schools.
In Monday's accident, however, the truck driver is the most guilty.
Driving his monstrous vehicle directly towards the children with clear
visibility down the road, the motorist was nothing short of a killer. It
was not an accident: It was manslaughter.
The exact cause of the tragedy had not been revealed by press time, but
the 50-metre long tyre marks and the condition of the damaged truck
suggest that the motorist was speeding.
Truck drivers are the most outrageous in this country. They never give a
thought to other road users when they rampage along highways or urban
streets. Every time I see a heavily loaded truck roar past, I wonder how
the driver can bring the mammoth machine to a halt should something
unexpected happen. And every time I drive on a country road at night, I
curse with clenched teeth because trucks coming from the opposite
direction never dim their dazzling lights.
Generally I sympathize with manual labourers because they are often the
weak side in social conflicts. But I won't take pity on truck drivers in
disputes on the road, because I think theirs is a lethal profession, to
others as well as themselves. The trucks they are driving can become a
lethal weapon if not properly handled. They should have a very strong
sense of responsibility.
Of course, it is going to extremes if one blames truck drivers
indiscriminately. But it is undeniable that a fairly large percentage of
truck drivers are ineligible for their job in terms of professional
ethics. There are some underlying causes of this.
One question is: Who should be responsible for guaranteeing that workers
in such a highly dangerous trade strictly follow professional standards
and ethics? Undoubtedly, road and traffic regulators should take the
responsibility.
First, the driving licence is a big problem. In rural areas, the issuance
of licences is loose. It is common that a person learns a few driving
skills from a private tutor and then spends money obtaining a licence. It
is difficult to know exactly how many truck drivers obtain their licences
in this way but the percentage is presumably not small, going by the
reported number of traffic accidents involving trucks.
Second, China's training of motorists often places more emphasis on
driving skills than on road ethics. Though a compulsory course about
traffic rules precedes the training, neither the trainees nor the
training schools take the one-week course seriously.
That is a sharp contrast with the practice in Western countries, where
the training is mainly about the driver's behaviour on the road. Many
Chinese immigrants or visitors to Western countries find it very
difficult to obtain a driving licence there even though they have had
many years of experience of driving in China. I have heard several true
stories about Chinese failing the driving test several or even dozens of
times in Australia, Britain or the United States. They failed because
they did not signal when changing lanes, or drove through a roundabout
without waiting for the vehicle which had right of way, or exceeded the
speed limit slightly as they are used to doing in China.
Developing a good sense of traffic ethics on the part of motorists,
especially truck drivers, will greatly reduce the number of road
fatalities.
Email: liushinan@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 11/16/2005 page4)
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