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Road Fatalities Still High

Road Fatalities Still High
Road Fatalities Still High

Reports by the statistics department of Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization indicate that road traffic deaths declined by 2.3% in the first half of the current fiscal year that began in March compared to the same period last year. But the numbers are still high.

Ahmad Shojaei, head of the ILMO told IRNA that 8,796 people were killed in road accidents over the first six months of this year while the figure was around 9,000 last year. Nearly 20.1% of the victims were pedestrians.  

“March 26 was the deadliest day with 75 road deaths.”   

The last month of summer (August 22-September 21) saw the largest number of fatalities (1,716) followed by the previous month when 1,663 people lost their lives in car crashes. The lowest number of causalities was registered in April-May.

The data also shows that the largest number of incidents occurred on intercity roads with a mortality rate of 64.8%. Around 27.5% of deaths happened on inner-city roads and 7.5% on mud tracks and rural roads.

Over the six-month period, 5,696 people died on intercity roads (3.6% decline compared to the first half of last year), 2,417 on inner-city roads (1.8% increase) and 661 on unpaved and rural roads (3.2% decline).

Fars, Khorasan Razavi and Tehran provinces were the leading scenes of fatal traffic accidents with 789, 640 and 624 deaths respectively. Ilam (74), Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad (96) and Yazd (116), on the other hand, saw the smallest number of fatalities.

Khuzestan (18.7%) and Chahar Mahal Bakhtiari (18.5%) had the steepest accident growth curves while Yazd and Kurdistan experienced a downward trend with 18.9% and 14.8% decline respectively in mortality.

At 77.8%, men comprised the majority of road casualties (6,847) while 22.2% were women (1,949). Also, among the victims over 18 years of age, 71.4% were married and 27.4% were single.

Drivers behind the wheel suffered the most comprising 42.4% of the fatalities and 36.1% were front and backseat passengers.

The death toll was highest in the 20-29 age groups at 22.4%.

  Head-on Collisions  

Head-on collision of vehicles was responsible for the biggest number of casualties (45.1%) while 20.1% were pedestrians hit by a motor vehicle.

The vehicles most involved in fatal crashes were sedans (40.3%) followed by motorcycles (26.3%), pickup trucks (6.8%), trucks (3%) and buses (1.4%).

Head injuries were the main causes of death (50.9%) but 25.7% of people died of multiple fractures and 8.6% due to extreme bleeding.

Over half of the casualties (50.4%) died at the scene of the accident, 6.9% on the way to a hospital and 41.2% in the hospital.     

The reports indicate that 88.6% of the injured were transferred to medical centers by ambulance, 8.1% by passing vehicles, 0.4% by police cars, and 0.9% by other means.

In the first half of the current year, 178,887 victims of car crashes were referred to the ILMO with a 7.2% rise as compared to the same period last year.

  Several Reasons for Accidents

Road accidents in Iran are attributed to several reasons, namely rash driving, flouting traffic rules, speeding, the bad conditions of inter-city highways and roads  and poor quality of domestically manufactured vehicles, some of which lack international safety standards.

Earlier Kamal Shoar, a university professor had said that lack of coordination between research institutions and policy and decision-makers had led to lack of an effective plan to curb road mishaps.

“Lack of centers to monitor and analyze traffic behavior as well as infrastructure constraints in every province is strongly felt. We should examine the causes that lead to road accidents in each province separately, as they vary.”

Sleep-deprivation (fatigue), high-speed driving, illegal overtaking, red traffic light crossing, talking on cell phone, text messaging and munching behind the wheel are the most serious driving violations that cause road crashes.

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