Two traffic crashes that claimed a total of 48 lives on Sunday could have been avoided had traffic rules been strictly obeyed.

In one, a sleeper bus rammed into a tanker carrying methanol on a highway in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, causing the flammable liquid to ignite. Thirty-six of the 39 passengers aboard the bus, including the driver, were killed. In the other, 12 passengers died after a van they were riding in rear-ended a stationary truck in Sichuan province.

The first one took place at 2 am, when Ministry of Public Security rules do not allow passenger buses on roads. Such vehicles are required to stay off the road between 2 am and 5 am to prevent fatal accidents from occurring in the small hours of the night, when drivers are likely to be sleepy.

Had the driver stopped the bus in a service area and waited until dawn or had tollgate officers or traffic police prevented it from running at such a late hour, the crash could probably have been prevented.

Other rules, meanwhile, are relevant to this accident. For one, any passenger bus that is to travel more than 400 kilometers should have at least two drivers aboard it. The rule is meant to ensure a driver can be replaced by the other if he is too tired. If it were followed, the chances of the bus' hitting a tanker from the rear would have been greatly diminished.

As for the other accident, the van involved in it lacked a license plate. According to traffic rules, that fact should have prevented it from being on the road in the first place. The accident would have been avoided had a tollgate worker or traffic police officer simply noticed the absence of a plate and stopped the van from getting on the expressway.

Both crashes should serve to remind drivers that they should never risk defying traffic rules, which are meant to protect all who travel the roads.

Those charged with investigating these accidents should attempt to learn which toll collectors and traffic officers failed to prevent the vehicles from running.

They also should identify any loopholes that allow people to more easily violate the intent of traffic laws.

Amid our sorrow for the victims of these accidents, we are calling for a stricter enforcement of traffic rules, whose importance cannot be exaggerated.

(China Daily 08/28/2012 page8)