1st LD Writethru: China sees fewer road accidents in Spring Festival rush

China's Ministry of Public Security has reported fewer road accidents and consequent fatalities during the 2015 Spring Festival peak period that officially ended Sunday.

It is estimated that some 2.8 billion trips were made during the 40-day 2015 Spring Festival travel rush, with nearly 90 percent via land transportation.

Despite the heavy load, the number of road accidents that led to casualties and death tolls dropped by 22 percent and 26.2 percent respectively year on year, said a ministry statement released Sunday, without offering specific figures.

According to the ministry, a huge road safety campaign launched prior to the Spring Festival rush canvassed nearly 40,000 passenger or dangerous chemical transportation enterprises and also eliminated some 34,000 road safety risks.

Meanwhile, road police strengthened crackdown on road violations such as speeding, fatigue driving, driving without a license and drunk driving, effectively lowering deaths under these circumstances compared with the 2014 peak period.

In a separate statement also released Sunday, the ministry said that police detained 3,811 train ticket scalpers and confiscated 192,000-plus tickets or purchase vouchers in a railway safety campaign started in December 2014.

Police also cracked more than 330 cases of making and selling counterfeit tickets and seized 156,000 fake tickets while investigating these cases.

In addition, police arrested 510 suspected thieves on trains as well as 3,365 suspects at large in connection with other crimes during the period. Endi