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Six people killed in car accident on St. Petesburg-Pskov highway

ST. PETERSBURG, January 4. /TASS/. Three adults and three children were killed on Sunday in a car accident on the St. Petersburg - Pskov highway in Russia’s northwest, and a woman was injured, regional traffic police reported.

The accident occurred at 18:45 Moscow Time [15:45 UTC] on the 165th kilometer of the road linking the two cities. A Hyundai and a Daewoo Nexia collided. The Daewoo caught fire. Its driver, passengers, including two adults and girls aged 14 and six, as well as a 2-year-old boy died.

A woman received injuries of medium severity in the Hyundai.

No more details were immediately available.

Some 30,000 people are annually killed in car accidents in Russia. The most widespread reasons for the accidents are a poor condition of roads as well as violations of traffic regulations: drunk driving, illegally crossing into the oncoming lane and running red lights.

Laws have been adopted recently to introduce tougher responsibility for the most serious violations of traffic regulations.

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