Taxis are one of the major causes of road accidents.

Liaoshen Evening News available here in Beijing said that Shenyang, the most important industrial base in northeast China's Liaoning Province, had 6,482 road accidents last year, leaving 809 people dead and another 4,303 injured.

Taxis were involved in 2,773 of these accidents in which 59 people were killed and 1,488 injured, said the newspaper.

Statistics show that over 95,226 people were killed in road accidents nationwide last year, accounting for 81.5 percent of the country's total death toll by accidents or 11.3 percent from the same period of 2000.

( Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2002)