170,000 policemen dispatched daily to ensure road safety during Spring Festival holiday

BEIJING - Nationwide, 170,000 policemen and more than 60,000 police vehicles were dispatched daily to ensure road safety and smooth traffic during the week-long Spring Festival holiday, said the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security.

As of 6 pm Sunday, the last day of the holiday, the death toll in traffic accidents dropped 53 percent year on year, while no accidents caused a death toll of 10 or more, the ministry said.

As a Spring Festival tradition, Chinese people head back home to reunite with their families, which leads to an annual travel rush around the festival.

China's traffic policemen and auxiliary policemen gave up opportunities to take a vacation and stuck to their posts to ensure traffic moved smoothly.

This year's Spring Festival fell on Feb 5 and the travel rush around the festival lasts from Jan 21 to March 1.