The Spring Festival travel rush has already arrived, and everyone hopes for safe reunion trips during the holiday. However, recent serious traffic accidents that have occurred in Henan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region are not only tragedies, but also a wake-up call about public safety, says an editorial in People's Daily. Excerpts:

The Spring Festival rush is foremost a test of safety, especially public transportation safety. It is not only a huge challenge for China's existing transportation capacity, but also demands more from the public transportation safety network to handle the great influx of passengers, vehicles and logistics within a limited time and space.

Although the traffic hardware capacity has improved in recent years, the Chinese-style Spring Festival rush — including unbalanced regional development, limited transportation capacity and restrictions on safety protection and management — have also increased the likelihood of accidents. Every accident is a huge emotional catastrophe.

Safety during Spring Festival travel affects the happiness of thousands of families and reflects government and relevant departments' sense of duty and concerns about people's livelihoods. Therefore, they should place a priority on safety in every detail of their work, especially during the Chinese New Year, with greater responsibility, more effective enforcement and more careful protection.

Only by giving concerns to both large and small safety issues and effectively combining organizational and individual safety can accidents be prevented, and every family welcome a peaceful and happy New Year.