3.6 million cars in Beijing and counting

Beijing registered 65,970 new motor vehicles in the first 45 days of 2009, or a daily increase of 1,466, Xinhua reported.

Before allowing the stats to become an emotional issue, you should consider the following points.

1. Any Chinese citizen who can legitimately obtain a car, and who has a valid driving license, has [should have] the same right to drive a vehicle in China as does an American, Italian, French, British, Japanese …, or German citizens in their countries.

2. At what stage of the looming ecosystems global collapse should driving a car no longer be considered as an automatic birthright, nor an automobile-centered economy an intelligent option?

Now, the rest of the stats from Beijing:

• Total number of cars in the city:   3.56 million [as of February 14, 2009 – figures from the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau.

• No of new drivers registered in Beijing:  58,590 [in the same period, representing a daily increase of 1,302.

• Total no of drivers in the city:  5.2 million.

Vehicles are stuck in a traffic jam along a major thoroughfare in the central business district of Beijing in this January 29, 2008 file photo. A sudden slowdown in car sales in China and India is threatening to shrink the global auto market this year, promising tougher times for an industry leaning on the two most populous countries to pick up the slack in the West. REUTERS/Claro Cortes IV/Files (CHINA). Image maybe subject to copyright.

The vice mayor of Beijing, Huang Wei, said the number of people killed in traffic accidents was less than 1,000 people last year, for the first time since 1999. Xinhua reported.

“Beijing reported 90 deaths from traffic accidents in its suburban areas since the beginning of this year, or 66 percent of the city’s total traffic deaths in the past six weeks, according to the bureau.” Xinhua said.

“The bureau did not reveal traffic deaths in 2008, but said last year saw the number of people killed in traffic accidents drop by 196 from 2007.”

In an earlier report, Xinhua said that China had recorded 5.1 road accident deaths for every 10,000 motor vehicles in 2007, the highest rate in the world, Reuters quoted  from the report.