Visibly disappointed at the outrageously high road mortality rates and saying that everyday at least 40 innocent lives are lost in traffic accidents, Traffic Police Chief for Roads says enough is enough.
Brigadier General Mohammad Hossein Hamidi said, “Every day 40 to 50 innocent lives are lost in road accidents. With limited funding for the Traffic Police, we have done everything to the best of our ability” to help the roadways, but to no avail.
In a talk with the automotive website Asre Khodro, he complained that the roads are not safe and cars made by local companies are of poor quality and flout safety standards.
“In light of the existing road conditions, substandard domestic vehicles and the irresponsible driving habits of Iranians, the Traffic Police has indeed reached its limit. We really do not know what else we can and should do to reduce the mortality rates,” the general said.
“So many lives are cut short due to road mishaps that could be prevented,” he added, blaming domestic automakers and the Ministry of Roads for their inaction and indifference toward road tragedies unfolding on a regular (daily) basis.
Car buyers and the general public for years have censured local manufacturers for the poor quality of their cars, but their complaints have fallen on deaf ears.
Also, the dilapidated vehicles used in the public transportation fleet, including urban and inter-city buses, have a big share in road accidents. In Tehran's public transport fleet alone, there are over 6,000 buses, half of which are more than ready for the scrap yard, according to the Tehran Bus Company. This also can be said about the public transport fleet around the country.
In addition, safety measures often take a back seat in road construction in Iran, which has made road trips life-threatening for the passengers.
Lethal Roads
Last month the Ministry of Roads and Urban Management released the result of its road analysis, saying that there are over 5,400 accident-prone areas along roadways throughout the country, more than half of which are in urban areas.
In a new bid to help safeguard lives, an application has been launched that notifies drivers of imminent danger when getting close to accident-prone areas. The app notifies them some 800 meters before reaching the blackspots.
Despite the unrelenting efforts, stringent traffic and driving rules, bigger penalties for lawless drivers and road rage, bigger and broader roads, new highways and underpasses, the dire situation remains unchanged and people keep on dying in road mishaps
Despite all the unrelenting efforts, stringent traffic and driving rules, bigger penalties for rough and lawless drivers, bigger and broader roads, new highways and underpasses, the dire situation remains unchanged and people keep on dying in road mishaps.
This is reconfirmed by a new report by the World Health Organization on the number of road traffic mortalities in 2016, which ranks Iran as the 38th country with the world's deadliest roads.
The report, released last December, says roads in Iran claimed over 15,900 lives in 2018, which according to WHO means about 20 deaths per 100,000 people. China topped the list with 261,000 recorded deaths.
WHO data says annually 1.35 million fatalities around the world are linked to road accidents, making the factor the leading killer of children and young people aged 5-29 years.
Rising Death Toll
Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization has published detailed reports on road fatalities over the past 13 years. According to available data, in the fiscal ending March 2005, more than 28,000 people died in road accidents. The number dropped to 15,900 in the fiscal that ended in March 2016.
However, the number of road fatalities has been of the ascending order since March 2016. Road accidents cut short 16,201 innocent lives in the last Iranian year that ended in March 2018 -- 1.9% higher than a year earlier.
The troubling part is that the latest LMO data show no decline in the death toll in the current fiscal (ends in March. Though there are still two months to go before the Persian New Year, the fatality number is already in the neighborhood of 12,000.
Charts provided by the organization say that during the eight months since the beginning of the current fiscal through Jan. 21, over 11,608 road deaths were recorded.
Of the total lives lost on the road, 2,932 were on city roads. Inter-city roadways took 7,838 lives during the investigated period and 838 people died in suburban road accidents.
Province of Fars has the highest road fatality rate among Iranian provinces with 958 cases, followed by Tehran with 854 and Isfahan with 804 deaths.
Ilam, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and Yazd provinces registered the smallest number of fatalities respectively with 110, 131, and 150.
Killer Factors
Traffic Police have regularly highlighted sleep-deprivation (fatigue), speeding, overtaking from the wrong side, running a red light, talking on the cell phone, text messaging and munching behind the wheel together with low-quality vehicles and roads as the main factors leading to the rod crashes.
Needles to say, motorcyclists and their dangerous driving habits generously contribute to the increasing number of road victims.
Motorbikes are used for moving parcels and passengers in Iran and have been a major nuisance to residents of cities because most bikers disregard traffic and safety rules.
Furthermore, unsafe driving along with entering the sidewalks endangers the life of both motorcycle drivers and pedestrians, as the High Council for Coordination of Urban Traffic said earlier, motorcyclists and pedestrians comprise almost 80% of the road mishaps.
