Traffic Fatalities Declining

The number of deaths from road accidents in the past ten years has dropped dramatically in Iran, according to figures published by Iran’s Legal Medicine Organization.

In the last calendar year (ended in March), 15,932 people lost their lives in road crashes. The figure was 16,584 in the preceding year.

Last year’s figure represents a 42% decline compared to the Iranian year 1385 (March 2006-07), when 27,567 lives were cut short due to road mishaps.

Since then the number of fatalities has been of the descending order reaching 22,918; 23,362; 22,974; 20,573; 20,068; 19,089; 17,994; and 16,872 deaths over eight years up to March 2014.

The precise reasons behind the sharp drop in driving deaths over the past decade is something of a mystery, but many officials attribute the decline to a combination of factors.

During the past decade more surveillance cameras were installed across the country to increase monitoring of arterial roads (2,000 were added in the past two years alone).

Better monitoring of driving behavior as well as stricter traffic laws have also helped in cutting road deaths as motorists look to their own pockets before breaking the law. It must, however, be added that good road etiquette and respect for the rule of law in Iran still has a long way to go.

The decline in deaths was not merely caused by the drop in accidents.

Renovation and equipping of more than 100 trauma centers across the country since the implementation of the 2014 Health Reform Plan and improved emergency response also had a fair share.

Since 2014, thirty new emergency stations have been opened across the country. There were no air emergency stations in Iran before the health plan was launched under the incumbent government.

  Still Too High

Iran still has one of the highest rates of road accidents in the world. Annually over 15,000 people are killed and an estimated 330,000 are injured in traffic accidents, with men comprising 75% of the figure, and mostly in the age group 25-40.

The accidents also account for the highest years of potential life lost in Iran, which is an estimate of the average years a person would have lived if he or she had not died prematurely.

According to Iranian Traffic Police, 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 are the most serious driving violations leading to crashes.

During the first three months of the current calendar year, 3,756 people were killed in traffic accidents across the country. The figure represents a 4.9% decline compared to the same period in the preceding year.

ILMO says of this number 2,964 victims were men and 792 women. During the period, 2,454 people lost their lives on suburban roads while 1,053 died after road mishaps in cities and 249 were killed after accidents on rural roads.

According to the report, the number of fatal accidents in suburban roads and inner city roads have decreased by 2.6% and 3.9% compared to the same period last year.

Provinces with highest number of victims were Fars (391), Tehran (294), and Khorasan Razavi (275). The three provinces with the lowest number of victims were Ilam (29), Ardebil (33), and Alborz (41), respectively.