SHANGHAI: More than 96 percent of all traffic accidents in the city are due to human error, rather than so-called "natural reasons", such as poor road surfaces or bad weather, a study has found.

Conducted by the Shanghai public security bureau and Ruijin Hospital, the report, which detailed more than 144,000 traffic accidents in Shanghai between 2002 and 2006, showed a total of 6,973 people were killed and 53,690 were injured on the roads, according to figures from the traffic police.

The category "illegal driving" accounted for the most deaths over the period, with 4,435, the survey said.

Lu Yiming, director of the first aid department at Ruijin Hospital, who worked on the report, said men aged 21 to 50 were the "most likely to be injured".

In addition to illegal driving, he said people's failure to use their seat belts was also a serious concern.

"Seat belts, which are often neglected by local people, are very important," Lu, who is also a member of the Shanghai First Aid Association, said.

"They should really be called life belts."

Although almost all vehicles are fitted with belts, and despite all drivers having to wear a seat belt by law, the life-saving equipment seems unpopular among local people. International research has shown that more than 90 percent of people in Western countries use seat belts.

"In Shanghai, seat belts are not popular," Gong Xiaochang, a local car owner, said. "I always ask my passengers to wear a belt, but many are unwilling to do so because they say it is uncomfortable."

Gong is in a minority of drivers who wear their belts willingly. Many others, including driving instructors, often put them on only when they spot a police officer.

"My instructor thinks his skills are good enough and so it is not necessary to wear a seat belt," Lu Chang, a local white-collar worker who recently passed her driving examination, said.

Even when driving at 20 kph, if a car makes an emergency stop, there is a 50-percent possibility that passengers not wearing seat belts could be thrown through from the vehicle. And almost 75 percent of those thrown through a door or the windscreen will die, the report said.

"But the good news is that the number of deaths and injuries over the past five years has fallen, despite an increase in the number of vehicles," Lu said.

Shanghai has some 2.38 million vehicles, of which about 510,000 are private cars.

(China Daily 07/17/2007 page4)