10 killed in China coach-truck highway collision

Beijing - The accident took place Friday evening in Hunan province south of the capital Beijing.

Ten people have been killed in central China and another 10 injured in a head-on collision between a passenger coach and a truck on a highway, police said Saturday.
The accident took place Friday evening in Hunan province south of the capital Beijing. Footage from the scene showed both heavily damaged vehicles along the rain-slicked highway. It appeared that one of the vehicles may have crossed a center divider.
Speeding, dangerous passing, poorly maintained vehicles and fatigued drivers are most often the cause of serious traffic accidents in China.
Despite vast improvements in safety, the World Health Organization says about 260,000 Chinese die each year in traffic accidents, many of them pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcycle riders. Long-distance coach buses are a cheaper alternative to high-speed trains or planes for the vast majority of working-class Chinese traveling around the vast country.