China is planning to intensify penalties for road crimes such as drink driving, speeding, overloading, fake licence plates and forged driving licences.

It has also proposed for the inclusion of drunk driving and speeding in the criminal law, and to prolong jail terms of maximum statutory sentences.

In the past six years, the Chinese police are expected to have handled an average of 19 million cases of speeding and one million drink driving cases annually, according to chinadaily.com.

In 2009, 238,000 road accidents are expected to have taken place compared with 667,000 in 2003, according to a report by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.

The report also claims that 68,000 people died in traffic accidents in 2009.