The numbers are staggering: Every day in China, 300 people die in motor vehicle accidents. That's tops in the world.

In fact, more than 104,000 Chinese lost their lives in traffic accidents last year, with the death rate 10.8 per 10,000 vehicles on the road.

With the nation's ever-expanding number of cars and drivers, things are only going to get worse.

Agencies like the World Health Organization are banking on education and promoting safety to turn things around.

Wednesday -- appropriately enough -- the global theme for World Health Day was traffic safety.

Statistics from the World Health Organization show that each year about 1.2 million people are killed on roadways and millions are injured across the globe, causing an annual economic loss of US$518 billion.

The day's theme this year calls for preventive measures to cut that cost in lives and capital.

It was a survey conducted by Jinan University of South China's Guangdong Province that found the figure of 300 people on average being killed each day in China in traffic accidents.

Sadly, officials predict, that rate is expected to increase by 10 per cent each year in the next few years, with poor traffic conditions largely to blame.

Professor Wang Shengyong, the director of the Injury Prevention and Control Centre at the Medical School of Jinan University, says, "Accidents are always considered to be uncontrollable but in fact can be prevented with accurate measures."

Such effort is under way in Shanghai, a citywide campaign to educate parents and kids about pedestrian safety is expected to reach 450,000 children -- almost all the primary school pupils.

(China Daily April 8, 2004)