ON TUESDAY, a young woman fell at a bus stop in Wuhan city, Central China's Hubei province, and her neck got stuck between two bars of the protective roadside isolation barrier. She died of suffocation. Beijing News comments:

This is not the first tragedy of its kind. A browse of past reports shows that at least three similar accidents happened in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu province, in 2010; Mizhi county, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, in 2016; and Xi'an city, Shaanxi province, in 2017.

The primary cause of these accidents is that the distance between the two bars on the roadside barriers happens to be about 10 centimeters, which almost "perfectly" matches an average adult's neck. As a result, when people fall down beside any guardrails, there is high risk of them getting stuck and very difficult for them to free themselves. Worse as in the case in Hubei, they might die of asphyxiation.

Therefore, it is not exaggerating to say that the fences are potential killers.

It is easy to solve that. All that is needed to change the standard so manufacturers will produce fences with smaller distances, both of which are safe.

However, so far there has been no move to change the standards. We hope that the authorities can take action at the earliest date, so that similar accidents do not happen in the future.