Traffic Safety Education andInformation Campaign Activities in
China

ReportWanqiu Liu

Dalian University of Technology, China

1Introduction
Ever since the invention of automobile, traffic accidents has went along with its development. Until now, more than 10 million people have lost their lives in traffic accidents.

Since 2005, the total number of traffic accidents is falling fast continuously each year in

China. The average falling rate is around 7.43% per year1. However, the situation of roadtraffic safety in China is still not optimistic. The annual road traffic mortality rate of China
is ranked the 2nd around the world. The Chinese Central Government has refined the ob-jective of road traffic safety work since 2003. The State Administration of Work Safety has
issued “the twelfth five year plan of road traffic safety” in Dec. 2011. The targets are thatin the year of 2015, the road traffic mortality rate will be less than 2.2 (around 3.2 now)
per ten thousand accidents and the public road safety consciousness will be enhanced
obviously. Relative laws and regulations have also been refined.

Human factors are the major cause of most of the road traffic accidents. In China, 85% of

the road traffic accidents are due to disobeying the traffic rules and lack of common senseof traffic safety2. Legislation and strengthen the management on transportation industry
are all effective ways that have been adopted to reduce human errors in driving. Educa-tion and information campaign are also important approaches to raise public awarenessof road traffic safety from a long-term perspective. The works are also long – term effort,
which needs the participants of different institutions, sharing of different actions, eventsand information of the society and improvement of the facilities for traffic management.
This report will focus on the education and information campaign activities in China to

reduce road traffic accidents. Section 2 will discuss the current state of road traffic safety
education and information campaign in China. Current status of people’s traffic safety

awareness in China will be discussed in Section 3. The major forms and main contents ofroad traffic safety education and publicity will be discussed in Section 4. Relative regulations and standards in China will be introduced in Section 5. In Section 6, typical casestudies in recent years will be introduced as the main content of this paper.

2

Current status of traffic safety education and publicity
Ever since the 1960’s, propaganda institutions, which are in charge of the organizing andimplementing traffic safety education and propaganda, have been set up in urban traffic
management departments in China. The State Council has confirmed that traffic safety

education and propaganda activities in the country are all administrated by the public security organs in 1986. The original State Education Commission (currently the Ministry of

Education) has issued “The announcement about establishing the Traffic Safety Education

2
Day in middle and primary school” in 1996, which has institutionalized the traffic safety

education in middle and primary school. The year of 1996 is also the first year of China’s“nine five - year plan”. The Ministry of Public Safety has specially formulated the “Threeyear plan of traffic safety publicity and education (1996-1998)”. The plan has included

the contents such as, constructing traffic safety propagation organizations and troops,

clarifying the propagation responsibility, traffic safety education for middle and primaryschool students, the use of public media, constructing traffic radio stations, making literature and art propagation materials for traffic safety propagation, building traffic safety
education schools, making good use of traffic polices, et al. At the same time, the firstweek of April has been selected as the “the nation’s traffic safety propagation week”.
April 30 has been selected as the “National traffic safety introspection day” of China.

In the third National Road Traffic Safety Meeting in 2006, “five rectifications” and “threereinforcements” concepts have been presented and until now, they are still the key pointsof the transportation safety work in China. The “five rectifications” are the rectificationof the driver troops, order of surface transport, enterprises of transportation, automobile
manufacturers and refitting companies, and dangerous road sections respectively, andthe “three reinforcements” are the reinforcement of the responsibility system, traffic

safety education and propagation, and examination of law enforcement respectively.

Deepen the implementation of the driver quality – oriented education project has been

listed as the No.1 emphasis among six in the presentation of Yongkang Zhou, who is thechair of the meeting.

In 2011, the Ministry of Public Safety has published an industrial standard entitled “Specifications for setting road traffic safety publicity and education facilities”3 to enhance thetraffic safety publicity and education of the law enforcements and service sites of public

security departments. However, until now, there’s no specific law and regulation related

to traffic safety publicity and education. Only the Article 6 of the “Road Traffic Safety Lawof the People’s Republic of China” has mentioned traffic safety education and propagation. It defines the duty of the government, public security departments, public institu-

tions and organizations, education administrative departments, schools and the media on
traffic safety publicity and education. However, legal responsibility has not been cleared
defined in this law.

Due to the lack of legislation and funding guarantee, the nation’s traffic safety publicity
and education system has not been constructed completely. The life cycle traffic safety

education system has not been built yet, either. The traffic safety publicity and education
seems only the “job” of the public security departments. More concerns should be givenby the public and the media to build a whole society involvement environment.

3

Current status of people’s traffic safety awareness
Although road traffic accident number of China has been keep following down in recent
years, traffic accident is still the No.1 factor that influences people’s sense of security,
which is higher than criminal offence and public disorder.

Traffic safety awareness is the major factor that influences the traffic accident rate. Basedon the statistics from the transportation departments of public security, in the year of

2007, 94.82% of the total traffic accidents were caused by human factor and 89.35% of

the total traffic accidents were due to motor vehicle drivers’ violation of laws. 3.81% and1.66% of them were due to non-motor vehicle drivers’, and pedestrians’ and passengers’
violation of laws respectively. In the year of 2010, 0.226 billion law violation cases havebeen dealt. Local public security departments send their traffic accident reports to the3central government each year and the statistical data are collected based on these re-ports. These data show that the people in China currently don’t have enough traffic safety
awareness.

According to the population census of 2010, there were 0.67 billion people in China haverural registered permanent residences which account for 50.32% of the total population.

The proportion is much higher than most of the countries in the world. The developmentsof economy and education are seriously unbalanced between urban and rural area. Vigorously developing the rural highway network has been given priority to by China government. However, the lack of comparative road traffic safety awareness of rural people

makes the traffic safety status of rural area not optimistic. This can be reflected as thepeople live in the rural area lack the cognition of danger and self-protection awareness.
Speeding, overloading, driving without license, driving scraped car and riding non pas-

senger vehicle are still common in rural transportation. The phenomena, such as people
do not know or understand the laws, are pervasive in rural area. They may put the laws
aside for ease or saving money. These appearances all prove the lack of traffic safety
awareness in the rural area.

4

Main content of road traffic safety education and publicity
Road traffic laws and regulations are one of the emphasis areas of traffic safety educationand publicity. The traffic laws and regulations in China have explicitly defined the rights,
obligations, and standards of conduct of traffic participants. However, due to certain

personal reasons, illegal phenomena can be found frequently. Many traffic participants
are not serious about the laws and regulations for road traffic or know very little about

them. For example, some pedestrians like to go across the road during red lights in China.
They know these behaviors are not appropriate, but they still think there’s no punishment
and cannot realize the danger.

The basic objective of road traffic laws and regulations is to ensure the safety of people’s
life and property. Other than the permit test for driving license, there’s no chance torequire people to study relative laws and regulations systematically. It is necessary let all
the traffic participants familiar with the traffic regulations through traffic safety education and different forms of publicity.

General traffic safety knowledge, which is very important for people’s ability training inanalyzing and solving problem in traffic activities, is the main content of traffic safety

education. It includes the general safety knowledge for pedestrians, riders, drivers, young
students and so on. For example, pre-school children should be leaded by adults when
walking on the road.

Traffic safety moral and psychology education is also very important for maintaining aharmonious traffic environment and also important for traffic safety. Traffic safety moral
education is to propagandize the concept of obeying traffic rules conscientiously and becourteous. Traffic safety psychology education is to tell people psychology knowledge intraffic activities. It aims to enhance people’s psychological diathesis and adaptive capacity. Then people will not only know the traffic rules, but also know why these rules are
set. They will react better during emergency situations with these in-depth learning.

5

Regulations and standards in China

4
As mentioned in section 2, only the Article 6 of the “Road Traffic Safety Law of the People’s
Republic of China” has refer to traffic safety education and propagation among all traffic
related laws and regulations. It says that the governments at all levels and public institutions and organizations should organize traffic safety education frequently to improve

people’s traffic safety awareness. Public security departments should enhance the publicity of traffic laws and regulations during performing their duties, and become exemplary
in obeying traffic laws and regulations. Administrative departments for education andschools should incorporate traffic safety education into their legal education. The departments of the media authorities have the responsibility for traffic safety education.

6

Typical traffic safety education and information campaign activities
China is one of the countries that have the largest fatality numbers caused by traffic accidents in the world. China government has pay special attention to traffic safety in recent

years and the traffic safety status in China has improved gradually. In 2006, China got ridof the No.1 position for traffic accident fatality number. The improvement of traffic safety
awareness of people is an important cause of this progress.

As early as 1986, the State Council has confirmed that traffic safety education andpropaganda are all administrated by the public security organs. Therefore, most of thetraffic safety education and information campaign activities in China are conducted bypublic security departments and other government organizations. The advantages can befound as fast implementation, wide spread and high number of participants. Spontane-

ous enthusiasm of people or non-governmental organizations may be reduced under thissituation.
6.1

Traffic safety education and propaganda to children
Traffic safety education has always been put emphasis on children and teenagers.

According to incomplete statistics, the fatality number of middle and primary school

students due to traffic accident and drowning account for more than 60% of the total

fatality number and the number of injuries and deaths caused by traffic accidents are still
increasing each year. More than 20 thousand of the middle and primary school students
injure or dead in traffic accidents each year. Traffic accident has become the No.1 killer

to juveniles. Traffic safety is important in guaranteeing the healthy and happy growing ofchildren and also keeping the harmony and stable improvement of the society. In 1996,

the original State Education Commission (currently the Ministry of Education) has issued“The announcement about establishing the Traffic Safety Education Day in middle andprimary school”, which has first institutionalized the traffic safety education in middle
and primary school. Each year, the Traffic Safety Education Day has a different topic.

In 2007, the Ministry of Education has enacted the “Guidance outline of public safety education for middle and primary school students”. Learning traffic safety laws, knowing thecommon sense of traffic safety, cultivating good habits of obeying traffic rules and laws,

analyzing travel potential safety hazard and searching solutions, and doing disperse exer-

cises have been added to the outline. After the beginning of the autumn semester in 2007,
local education administrative departments have carried out deep road traffic safety education activities to the teachers and students in middle and primary schools. Each school

has been asked to use propagation pictures, cards and presentations to help the students
to cultivate good traffic safety behavioral habits. Special attention has been paid to the“black” school bus (school bus without relative qualifications) in these activities.

Different sectors of the society have shown their concerns in children and teenagers’5
traffic safety education though different forms and ways. Motor corporations are also
enthusiastic in traffic safety education. China Concerned about the next Generation

Working Committee has initiated the “Traffic safety education activities for primary andsecondary school students” in Beijing in 2010. Different publicity methods, such as, itinerant exhibition of traffic safety knowledge, itinerant exhibition of traffic safety education,collecting 10 thousand driver’s signatures in concerning children’s travel safety et al,

have been adopted to improve the traffic safety status of primary and secondary school
students in China.

Motor corporations are also the activists of traffic safety education and publicity. BMW,
GM, Toyota et al, have participated in children’s traffic safety education and publicity

activities in China. BMW became the first automobile manufacturer that provided professional road safety training classes to all drivers in the world in 1977. In 2005, BMW has
brought the Children’s Traffic Safety Education Camp project into China, which helps
the children between 4 to 9 years old to learn traffic safety knowledge and cultivate

their traffic safety awareness during playing. BMW has built their camps in Guangzhou,

Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenyang and Beijing in China. More than 350 thousand of children
have taken advantage of the camps. BMW has also produced a cartoon TV series with thelength of 52 episodes called the “Anan’s story” in 2013 and it has been televised by Bei-jing TV. In addition to basic traffic safety knowledge, BMW also included self-protection
knowledge during an earthquake, a fire alarm and outdoor recreation into the stories.

GM has cooperated with the China Concern Organizing Committee started the “GM Children - Family Traffic Safety Education” project in 2008. They have signed the “Children

traffic safety family education plan” to promote children - family traffic safety educationin China. Based on the plan, the project was started in Beijing, Tianjin and Qingdao topromote concepts, popularize knowledge and exhibit achievements on traffic safety. They
have planned to cover 50 cities and 10 million families within 5 years. The slogans for the
1st year were “fasten the seat belt” and “use the children safety seat”.

Also in the year of 2008, Toyota has cooperated with the Children Department of China

Women’s Union and China Family Culture Research Society started the “Little hand bold

big hand - China family traffic safety education” activities. They have sent more than 60
thousand “Doraemon Traffic Safety Manual” to 345 kindergartens in 21 cities.

The famous tyre manufacturer Michelin has cooperated with related organizations ofChina carrying out many different activities on traffic safety education and propagation,
especially towards children and automobile drivers. In 2011, Michelin has published thefirst traffic safety manual in tyre industry for elementary school students. In 2010, Michelin has signed the corporation contract with the Traffic Management Research Center of
Ministry of Public Safety on the training and propagation of tyre safety.

In 2008, the Red Cross Society of China has started the “Road, car and care to children’s

lives” activities to call for care about children’s life and health. The activities were aimed
to popularize traffic safety knowledge, call for traveling in a civilized manner, and honor
the people oriented products for vehicles and children. The highlights of the activities
were electing love ambassadors from entertainment and sport stars, electing vehicle
models that were most suitable for children, publishing the “Blue book of the social

responsibilities of China automobile enterprises”, carrying on the surveys on people’s

consumption customs and safety and healthy brands, and setting up Red Cross first aid kit
media, et al.

6
6.2

Driver’s training and education
China is entering the automobile society in recent years. Comparing to the US, who hasgiven up public transport after the Second World War, the demotic driving history of

China is much shorter. In the US, formal driver training is not required before getting thedriver license, since American people are familiar with cars and transportation regulations
when they were young. As stated definitely in Article 20 of the Road Traffic Safety Act

Enforcement Regulations of China, coach and instructional car are required during driving
learning process before the driver license test. Entering a driving school is a necessary

step to get the driver license in China. Therefore, ensuring the quality of driving schools is
a very important to improve traffic safety status in China.

In article 20 of Road Traffic Safety Act, it is confirmed that driver training implementssocialization management. Traffic management departments are in charge of the qualification of driving schools. Driving schools should teach their students traffic safety laws,
regulations and driving skills in strict accordance with the nation’s regulations.

In 2005, China government has carried out full scale quality-oriented education projectfor drivers. The Ministry of Transportation has compiled the “Syllabus for driver’s qualityoriented training” and published the teaching materials entitled “Driving safely starts

from here” and the “Assessment methods for driver’s integrity”. Through rectifying thedriver training market, reforming training methods, improving training effectiveness,

improving supervision mechanism, and enhancing propagation et al, the project aimed
to deepen the quality-oriented education for drivers. During the Sixteenth National

Congress of the Communist Party of China, more than 2,100 driver schools that were notqualified have been shut down. More than 11,000 driver coaches have been expelled.

More than 5, 000 examiners have been re-train and more than 4 million drivers with theviolation points more than 12 in that year have been trained. In the year of 2006, thenumber of accidents and fatalities caused by drivers with the driving year less than one
has been reduced 62.3% and 40.7% respectively comparing to that of 2003.

The Ministry of Transportation has re-published the “Syllabus of automobile driver’s training and education of the People’s Republic of China” in 2007 and the old one has beenabolished at the same time. In the new syllabus, driver’s ethics content, such as comityand driving in a civilized way, has been added. General vehicle faults and emergencies
dealing methods have been added. The use of driving simulator and quality - oriented

training methods have also been added. The new syllabus has used the stage teachingand staged checking training mode. The first stage is laws, regulations, relative theories
and driving ethics education. The second stage is the forming and improvement of basic

driving skills. The third stage is actual road driving and predication and analysis capability training. The fourth stage is dealing methods for common vehicle faults and how toprevent traffic accidents.

In 2009, the Ministry of Public Safety has revised the “Application regulations of auto

mobile driver license”. The new regulations allow more disabled people to drive cars. In
2010, the Ministry of Transportation has published the “Syllabus for driver training of

disabled people” to ensure the quality of driver training for disabled people. In 2011, theMinistry of Public Safety and Central Civilization Office have deployed the “Civilizing traffic action plan”. The plan has proposed to build model schools for civilizing traffic as the
traffic safety publicity bases.

There were 7 accidents happened with the fatalities larger than 10 in 2010, and 5 of themwere caused by road passenger transport. In Mar. 16, 2010, the Ministry of Public Safety
and the Ministry of Transportation have sent out urgent notice to start the renovation

activities of the road traffic safety education for the road passenger transport around the7nation from Mar. 17 to May 17. During the activities, temporary check points have been

set along major highways to check the driver license and registration information of passenger vehicles with seats larger than 7, and provide safety reminders. The check points
have forced the drivers who drove more than 4 hours continuously or totally more than

8 hours within 24 hours, to rest. The education activities also focused on speeding andoverloading. Serious punishments have been given to the drivers who violated the traffic
laws and regulations during the centralized checks.

One of the representatives of the traffic safety education school runs by non-governmental sectors that can be introduced is the Shanghai Traffic Safety Education School. It wasestablished in 1995 by Shanghai Television University and co-organized by Shanghai traffic office of public security bureau. It now has 23 county branch schools and 53 everyday
education coaching center. It takes the responsibilities for the traffic safety education of

millions of drivers in Shanghai. The school now has the special projects of “Traffic safety
managerial staff training”, “Driver daily education “, “Special workshops on traffic ac-

cident precaution” and “New driver introduction education”. It has earned class A in thecomprehensive assessment by Yangpu district education assessment office in 2000.
6.3

Law publicity campaign
The “Road Traffic Safety Act of the People’s Republic of China” has been passed by thetenth Executive Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republicof China in Oct. 28 of 2003 and implemented in May 1 of 2004. It is the first basic law inChina that comprehensively regulates the relationship between the rights and obligationsof road traffic participants.

The Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Public Safety have published the notification aboutcarrying out the studying and propaganda work of the “Road Traffic Safety Act” in 2004.
The notification has asked the justice departments, public security departments, propa-

ganda departments of liberation army and general political departments of all the prov-

inces and municipalities to conduct the law publicity work. The law publicity should reachto the leading cadres of all levels, law enforcement officers of traffic police, automobile

drivers and all the people especially children and teenagers. After a concentrated periodof studying the law, the study and propagation activities with the theme of “Love life andhealth, maintain road traffic safety” should be carried out as stated in the notification.
In 2006, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CPC, Ministry of

Public Safety, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Justice and State Administration of Work
Safety have issued the “Implementation plan of the - protect life, travel safely – traffic safety education and propaganda project”. The plan was a deepening of the “fiverectifications” and “three reinforcements” works. The plan called on government offices
to put emphasis on traffic safety and use different methods to propagate traffic safety

law and improve people’s traffic safety awareness. The plan also cleared the assessmentof relative government organizations based on traffic safety education and propagationachievements.

In 2000, the Central Law and Order Office, the Central Civilization Office, the Ministry of
Public Safety and other 9 departments have co-published the “Notice about enhancing

the education and propagation works of road traffic management laws and regulations”
to local administrative departments, including law and order office, civilization office,public safety, economy and trade, education, judicial, construction, and agricultural de-partments, federation of trade unions, the communist youth league committee, women’sfederation and children’s working committee. The weak in understanding traffic safety
laws and lack of modern traffic safety awareness have been recognized as one of the8direct and most importation reasons for the high accident rate in China. The notice has
asked different organizations to cooperate in the education and propagation of traffic

safety laws and regulations. The traffic management departments of public safety should
widely carrying out the propagation and education of traffic management laws andregulations through establishing the “Safe road” activities, implementing the “Smoothtraffic project” and the traffic safety propagation week of each year. Traffic safety legal

education should permeate into relative courses of middle and primary school students byeducation departments.
6.4

Special concern on rural area
As described in Section 3, the traffic safety awareness status of people in the rural area isreally worrying. Rural areas have very low car ownership compared to cities. For exam-

ple, the car ownership ratio between cities and rural areas in Hunan province in China isaround 18:1. However, in recent years, 55% of the fatalities in traffic accidents are peas-

ants and the rate is still increasing. China government has pay special attentions on traffic
safety education and propaganda to rural people.

In 2004, the nation has concentrated on traffic safety propagation coming to the country-side, to communities, to enterprises and public institutions, to schools and to families (the“five to”) activities. The rural area has been put forward as the emphasis on preventing

road traffic accidents and it is the priority among priorities of the “five to” activities. The
activities aimed at improving self-protection and precaution awareness through enhancing traffic safety education and propagation in rural area. The provinces and cities ofChina then started traffic safety education and propagation coming to the countrysideactivities using different forms. For example, Shenyang has convoked the “ceremony oftraffic safety coming to villages and towns and communities in the city propagation ac-

tivities”. The first speech of the activities was about rural area traffic safety. The deputy

mayor of Shenyang and the director of the municipal public safety bureau have joined the
propagation team and given speeches. The representatives of villagers and traffic polices

have used the traffic accident cases around them to persuade people improve their traffic
safety awareness. The “five to” activities have been treated as the focus of traffic safety
propagation work until now.

In November of 2007, the traffic management bureau of the Ministry of Public Safety

has published the “Notice about carrying on winter traffic safety propagation activities
and reaching the high tide of the propagation”. The propagation to the transportationenterprises and countryside were the focus. For the rural people, the propagation hasemphasized on the harm and consequence of serious traffic illegal acts, such as tractor,

three wheel truck, and the low speed truck for goods carrying passengers in violation oflaw, driving without license, drunk driving and riding motorcycle without safety helmet,
et al, to improve the traffic safety awareness of rural people. For transportation enter-

prises, the emphasises were on the propagation of safe traveling and vehicle maintenancecommon knowledge in the harsh environment of winter, the harm and consequence ofoverloading and drunk driving et al.

There are about 10 thousand agricultural machinery accidents happened each year in

China and about 5 thousand serious injuries and fatalities. Agricultural machinery safety

has become one of the destabilizing factors of the society. The Ministry of Agriculture andthe State Administration of Work Safety have started the “Establishing safe agricultural
machinery and promoting the new country construction” activities from 2006 to 2008

to enhance the management of agricultural machinery. The objectives of these activities

were to clear the responsibilities of safe production, to improve the education and propagation of agricultural machinery safety and awareness of people’s production safety, and9to improve the driver license management and agricultural machinery management. The

key part of these activities was including the agricultural machinery production safety to
the assessment system of new country construction of all the levels of the government
departments of China.

Since 2006, a series of safe agricultural machinery model towns, counties, villages andfamilies have been established. Agricultural machinery accidents have been reduced andrural people’s safety awareness has been improved obviously. To deepen the relative
works, the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Administration of Work Safety havedecided to continuing carrying on the “Establishing safe agricultural machinery andpromoting new country construction” activities from 2009 to 2011. The objectives of

the activities have been cleared as building 10 safe agricultural machinery model towns,
100 model counties, 1,000 model villages and 10,000 model families in each province in
China to forming the safe agricultural machinery environment. 200 national wide safe

agricultural machinery model towns would then be elected based on this. The “National

standards for building the safe agricultural machinery model towns, counties, villages andfamilies” has been established by the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Administrationof Work Safety. Enhancing education and propagation and creating social atmospherehave still be treated as one of the key works until now.

The traffic management bureau of the Ministry of Public Safety has cooperated with the
China Insurer Company starting the “Million picture albums coming to the countryside”

activities in 2007. Picture albums entitled “striving for a relatively comfortable life cannot
leave safety aside” have been sent to the countryside of different provinces in China. The

director of the traffic management bureau of the Ministry of Public Safety has pointed outthat traffic safety is a long term work and only if the rural friends, who account for half ofthe populations in China, mastered traffic safety knowledge, traffic safety work can gain

effect. The picture albums tell people how to walk, ride and drive safely. The contents use
demotic languages and vivid pictures, which are very suitable for people live in the ruralarea to read.

The traffic management bureau of the Ministry of Public Safety has decided to ask the

departments of traffic management to start the open of police camps activities since Sup.
20, 2007. During the open period, the departments of traffic management should invite

people from all walks of life, especially the representatives of drivers, riders and walkers,
primary and secondary school students, owners of transportation enterprises and safetyadministrators, personnel of enterprise and public institutions, and the representativesof peasant workers, coming to the police camps. They will observe the work going of thetraffic safety departments on law enforcement, traffic dispersion, and accident handlingon site. The activities were first carried out in the capitals of the 36 provinces and independent planning cities in China.

The traffic management bureau of the Ministry of Public Safety has also carried out the“National police camps open day” activities in 2012. In the first “National police camps
open day” of Jan. 7, 2012, the traffic safety of spring festival transportation has been

selected as the theme of the activities. Peasants and migrant workers from the countryside has been invited to the police camps for traffic safety propagation and gatheringcomments on improving traffic safety during spring festival.
6.5

Traffic safety propagation with special theme
The government offices of China and social organizations have always pay attention totraffic propagation using important events as the background. It is easy to gather attention from the public and therefore the influence will be deeper than usual.

10
China has hosted the 29th Olympics in Beijing in 2008. It was also the first time China

hosted the Olympics. Many traffic safety propagation activities have been carried out using the theme of Olympics. The propaganda department of the Central Committee of the

CPC and Ministry of Public Safety have started the “Welcome Olympics and travel safely”
traffic safety knowledge contest in June of 2008. Participants can answer questions

published through different medias. People who give correct answers to all the questions
have a chance to get different levels of prizes through lottery activities. Based on statis-

tics, the contest questions have been published on 87 provincial level and 626 prefecturelevel news papers, and 637 web media. The audiences of the TV contests were more than
58.8 million and the relative participants were more than 116 million. It was gratified tosee that among these participants, there were about 42 million middle and primary school
students. The activities have promoted the safe travel of the juveniles apparently.

April 25 of 2008 was the first theme propagation day of the “Olympics Security ThemeDay”. It was also the “Welcome Olympics safely and make contributions to ordered traffic” traffic propagation day. The special theme of the propagation day was “Fasten theseat belt and no accidents”. The propagation contents have been focused on generalknowledge of seat belts, their functions and relative laws and regulations.

The city of Beijing has started the odd and even license plate rule between Jul. 20 and

Sep.20 in 2008. The traffic management committee and other organizations have initiatedthe “For the harmonious transportation, Beijing can rely on me” activities. The activities

called on private automobile owners in Beijing to travel in a civilized, safe, green, healthy
and happy manner. The activities have got strong social responses, making them one of
the largest ever events. More than 500,000 car stickers and 120,000 flyers have been
given out, and more than 100,000 drivers have registered to the activities.

Shanghai has hosted the 41th World Exposition in 2010 and this was also the first time

China hosted the World Exposition. To take the opportunity for traffic safety propagationand keep a well road transportation environment, the municipal public security bureauof Shanghai has joint with other six departments to enact the “Work plan of road traffic

safety propagation during Shanghai World Exposition”. The work plan included increasing
the social propagation width and increasing the safety awareness of traffic participants,
and intensifying the propagation of the media to highlight the elegant demeanor of theWorld Exposition traffic polices. The leader of these activities was the municipal pub-lic security bureau, and the municipal civilization office, the municipal comprehensive

management of public, the propaganda department of the municipal party committee,
news office of the municipal government, the municipal board of education and party

committee and government departments of all the districts in Shanghai should in chargeof different propagation works.

To respond to the call of enhancing global road traffic safety resolution of the United Na-tion, six departments (the Ministry of Public Safety, the Ministry of Health, et al) have coorganized the first “United Nation road traffic safety week – China district” activities in2007. Traffic management departments of the public safety organizations have publishedthe “Road safety action appeal” to the society. Based on uncompleted statistics, during
the activities, local public safety departments have given out about 70 million propa-

ganda materials, set more than 100 special columns through the media, published 7000
papers and about 0.12 billion people have joined the activities.

Drunk driving has been one of the main risk factors of road traffic accidents. Under the

conducting of the road traffic safety cooperation alliance of the United Nation, the World

Health Organization, the Global Road Safety Partner, the World Bank and the FIA foundation have published the Chinese version of “Drunk driving” as one of the road traffic

11safety manual series in 2007. The manual introduced best practice cases of drunk driving

projects around the world, and briefly introduced steps for establishing and implementing
reducing drunk driving projects.
6.6

Travel information service
Serve weather is always a threat to traffic safety. It will influence driver’s line of sight andtherefore influence the observation capability and judgment of driver. Serve weather,such as rain and snow, will also lower the safety performance of the automobiles. Indi-

rectly, serve weather can influence driver’s physical and psychological condition, and may
also damage road traffic safety facilities. Therefore, publishing traffic related weather

information in time to the road users is very important. Other travel related information,such as highway conditions, emergency events, highway constructions, et al, can help

travelers planning their trips ahead of time, changing their routes and making their travel
more safe, convenient and reliable.

In 2006, the Ministry of Transportation has published the “Regulations for road traffic

information service” and the “Reporting regulations for road traffic blocking informationof the Ministry of Transportation”. According to these regulations, transportation departments of different level should publish different kind of information alone the highway

in time through using the internet, call centers, TV and radio stations, vehicle mounted

terminals, mobile terminals, information publishing facilities along the highway, et al, to

fulfill different requirements of the road users. The information published mainly include
the name of the highway, the mileage, the key technical indexes, major cities and scenic
spots, the weather information of the day and the coming 48 hours, road maintenanceand rehabilitation information, and emergency incidents, such as natural disasters, accidents, social health events, et al and relative road traffic management measures.

The Ministry of Transportation has established the website of “China highway informa-tion service” (www.chinahighway.gov.cn). The website provides the latest traffic queryand real time rolling highway operation information to facilitate the road users. The

Research institute of highway ministry of transport has established the working team ofroad weather service and emergency of response in 2005. The work team has cooperated
with different kind of media to provide real time traffic related weather and emergency
information to road users.

During January and February of 2008, Southern China has encountered a wide range oflow temperature, sleet frozen weather, which hasn’t be seen within 50 years. It was also
during the spring festival travel periods. Many airports and highways have been shut

down during that time and stranded passengers in Guangzhou were nearly about 800

thousand in Jan. 30. In November of 2009, the Ministry of Transportation has sent emer-

gency notice and asked all level of traffic management departments pay high attention to
the influence of serve weather to traffic safety. The Ministry of Transportation asked the

local departments to make most of different kinds of media to propagandize the disasterprevention and relief works of transportation departments, and guide passengers andvehicles travel reasonably, along with making many disaster prevention arrangements.
In 2010, the Ministry of Transportation and China Meteorological Administration havepublished the “Notice of further enhancing the road traffic weather service”. The noticeasked local transportation and meteorological departments to push the establishing ofspecial traffic weather observation stations and live – action video monitoring systems

with the considering of road traffic weather service requirements. The objectives were to
make road traffic weather service more intelligent and humanized. The meteorologicaldepartments have promised to fasten the upgrade of weather stations along the highway,12especially the observation of visibility facilities. The departments of transportation shouldin charge of the maintenance of these meteorological facilities. The two departments

will cooperate through the use of TV, radio, internet, cellphone message, road electronic
screen, et al to send emergency call of road traffic weather monitoring and reminder ofsafe traveling to the public in time.

7

Conclusion
The high frequency of traffic accidents has seriously restricted the development of theeconomy in China. The mode of government conducting and local departments of differ-

ent levels working together for traffic safety has restrained the highly increasing trend of
traffic accidents in a short time. However, traffic safety is a long term and complex task.
It needs the attention and participation of the whole society. The weak in understand-ing traffic safety laws and lack of modern traffic safety awareness have been recognized
as one of the direct and most importation reasons for the high accident rate in China. To

improve the road traffic environment, enhancing the education and propagation of traffic
safety and improving the consciousness of traffic participants on obeying the traffic rules
and regulations are very important other than the increase of the transportation infrastructure construction.

As early as 1996, the “Three year plan of traffic safety publicity and education” haspointed out that traffic safety education and propagation works in China should include
constructing traffic safety propagation organizations and troops, clarifying the propagation responsibility, traffic safety education for middle and primary school students,
the use of public media, constructing traffic radio stations, making literature and art

propagation materials for traffic safety propagation, building traffic safety education

schools, making good use of traffic polices, et al. Traffic safety education and propagation now are still focused on these areas and the public road safety consciousness has
been enhanced obviously.

This report has reviewed the history of road traffic safety education and information

campaign activities in China. The current status of traffic safety education and publicity

and people’s traffic safety awareness have been analyzed. Major traffic safety educationand information campaign activities have been summarized under the classification of

traffic safety education and propaganda to children, driver’s training and education, law

publicity campaign, special concern on rural area, traffic safety propagation with special
theme, and travel information service. It can be seen that China government has spent a

lot of human and material resources on the relative works of road traffic safety educationand information campaign activities. Different social organizations and individuals havebeen actively organizing and participating in these activities.

However, due to the lack of legislation and funding guarantee, the nation’s traffic safety
publicity and education system has not been constructed completely. The enrollmentof social organizations and individuals in road traffic safety education and information

campaign activities are not totally initiative and still not enough. More concerns should

be given by the public and the media to build a whole society involvement environment.
The developments of economy and education are seriously unbalanced between urban

and rural area in China. Traffic safety awareness is widely lack in the rural area. Special

concerns are still needed to be paid to the road traffic safety education and propagationin rural area. China will still advocate the hard – working spirit and solidarity efforts inovercoming the new difficulties and challenges of transportation safety in the future.

13

References
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Research Institute of Highway Ministry of Transport. The Blue Book of Road Safety in China 2007. China

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Author Profile
Wanqiu Liu
Associate Professor, Department of Transportation and Logistics,
Dalian University of Technology

Born in Tongliao in 1981, Liu withdrew from the doctoral programin Mechanical Engineering at the University of North Carolina

at Charlotte in 2007. She received her PHD in Infrastructure andEnvironmental Systems from the University of North Carolina

at Charlotte in 2009. She took her current position right after

graduation. She was a young committee member of Transporta-tion Research Board (TRB), a member of International Society for

Optics and Photonics and Chi Epsilon, the National Civil Engineer-ing Honor Society. Her research interests include structural healthmonitoring, structural analysis and transportation safety.