SHENZHEN traffic police reprimanded 59 tourism bus companies for failing to either conduct annual vehicle inspections in time or scrap buses with expired inspections.

At a meeting with managers of the companies last week, police required the companies to complete annual checks or scrap procedures within a week after receiving police notices, otherwise police will take measures to impound the vehicles and issue punishments to the companies.

Police statistics showed there were a total of 94 tourism buses, including 22 owned by individuals, overdue for their annual inspections. The move was made to control risks at the source and eliminate dangers associated with operating buses on roads.

Three buses of Shenyun Bus Service Co. failed to get annual inspections in time. On separate occasions, two of them were impounded in Dongguan and Yunnan, while the third bus has been applied to be scrapped at a Pingshan scrap yard.

Some of the companies hadn’t applied for annual inspections because they had failed to handle their traffic violations in a timely manner.

Shenzhen implemented a mechanism to place the responsibility on operators when a traffic accident is caused by their buses last October. In the past years, police have investigated 45 cases including six criminal cases. A total of 22 people were arrested.

Fatal accidents related to tourism buses occasionally happen in China. On July 6, nine people were killed and 28 were injured when a tourism bus collided with an overloaded truck and a private car on a national highway in Weichang County, Chengde City, Hebei Province. The bus overturned after the collision.

On Sept. 25, two people were killed and 40 were injured in a bus collision with a truck on a bridge in Nansha District, Guangzhou. The bus was carrying 43 tourists from a Hong Kong travel group. Ten of the injured were in serious condition.

(Han Ximin)