China to toughen penalties for road crimes
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China's Ministry of Public Security plans to intensify punishment for road crimes, aiming to carry on last year's progress of having few road accidents.
That was learned from a report submitted Wednesday by the ministry to the 14th session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature.
According to the report, there were 238,000 road accidents last year, comparing 667,000 in 2003. Some 68,000 people were killed in traffic accidents last year, down from 104,000 in 2003.
State Councillor and also Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu suggested that serious road offenses such as drunk driving and speeding be included in the Criminal Law and the jail terms of maximum statutory sentences for road crimes be prolonged.
The ministry also proposed fines for drink driving, speeding, overload and using fake plates and driving licenses be raised.
Statistics show that police dealt with an average of 19 million cases of speeding and one million drink driving cases annually in the past six years.
Accidents resulted from these two kind of offenses posted an average annual drop of 10 percent over the same period.
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