Highway accident, injury, and fatality data for 1985 for the 29 provinces and municipalities of the people's republic of china were analyzed in terms of population, number of vehicles, and number of licensed drivers. China is clearly at the beginning of the "highway safety transitio, " as evidenced by high fatality-per-vehicle and lowfatality-per-population rates. Although changes in fatality rates over time could not be analyzed, the number of fatalities per vehiclewas found to decrease with increasing vehicle ownership in the provinces in accordance with smeed's law. Growth in the number of vehicles is extremely rapid, and private ownership is being encouraged in the spirit of the new economic reforms. The costs due to traffic fatalities, injuries, and property damage must be included in the totalprice of developing the highway system that is so badly needed for china's economic development. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1238, Application and management of accident data.
Abstract