Over the three-month period ending in mid-March, 5,851 traffic accidents occured nationwide, killing 2,345 people, or more than 26 people per day, the National Traffic Safety Committee announced Wednesday.

>> Traffic accidents kill 138 in Ho Chi Minh City in Jan-Feb The period, from December 12, 2014 to March 15, 2015, also saw 5,488 others injured in traffic accidents, the commitee said. Compared to the same period of one year earlier, the number of accidents dropped by 11.11 percent while their resulting deaths and injuries decreased by 3.38 percent and 15.07 percent respectively. In the period from February 16 to March 15, 778 people died and 1,726 others were wounded in 1,744 traffic accidents across the country, the commitee said. As compared year-on-year, the deaths in that period rose by 169, or 27.75 percent, and the injuries also inched up by 0.29 percent while the number of accidents fell by 0.34 percent. During the three-month period, traffic police officers nationwide handled 947,693 instances of road rule violations, issued fines totalling VND616.42 billion (US$28.7 million), impounded 11,033 automobiles and motorbikes, and revoked 85,217 driver’s licenses, the committee said. Over the same period, police also dealt with 45,542 violations of waterway regulations around the country and collected VND23.325 billion ($1.09 million) worth of fines. On average, road accidents kill around 9,000 people in Vietnam every year – almost 25 deaths per day – and leave hundreds of thousands of others with life-time injuries, Transport Minister Dinh La Thang said at a requiem held in Ho Chi Minh City on November 10, 2014  for the dead victims. The event was held to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Victims of Road Traffic Accidents, which falls on the third Sunday of November each year.

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