By Jubin Katiraie
Under the shadow of the Iranian regime, Iran has for years been named as one of the worst countries for death on the roads. This reality is reflected in the state-run media which writes daily about this dramatic situation.
State-run website Etemad-Online on 9 December 2019 reported with the title, “Horror roads waits many years for credit”, giving a better vision about the disastrous situation and the widespread social damage left by these accidents.
At the beginning of this report it states, “The Lar-Jahrom road is again taking victims; one died and three were injured. Don’t be surprised because this road has seen worse days. The bad news is that many roads have the same result for their travelers. This accident happened last night for the very dangerous Save-Salaftchegan road, and four died and nine were injured.
“Which means that in less than 24 hours, five people died on Iran’s roads, which have been waiting many years to be widened.”
This state-run website after highlighting the increase of deaths and car accidents on the roads of Iran, counted and named the main dangerous roads in the country, which should have been widened many years ago, but because of the corruption in the government, they have been forgotten:
- The Jahrom-Larestan-Bandar Abbas axis is one of the ten transit, high-speed, high-risk routes and one of the most important arterial axes in the country. It was said that this road should be widened as soon as possible and be fully operational. While Fars Province Road Police said in 2017 that the road should be widened as quickly as possible, no manager has taken any action till now, only 56 km of it has been widened and the remaining sections are still dangerous.
However, the 165km long axis is one of the shortest and best routes to access the southern ports and the islands of Kish and Qeshm, therefore it has a huge amount of traffic.
- Ahar-Tabriz road, with 40 deaths, is at the forefront of the year’s accident in East Azerbaijan province. This was reported by the commander of the East Azarbaijan police last year. The severity of accidents on the road was so much that it has had a record of 40 deaths in four months and its annual crash rate was 135 percent last year compared to the rest of Iran.
- The Qom-Garmsar route is 150km long and runs through the desert while town or villages are scarcely accessible; even gas stations are rare and far from the standards. Yet, at least eight people died in driving accidents on the road last month.
Undoubtedly, these horrific and deadly events that claim the lives of dozens daily are the natural result of corruption and criminal acts of the rulers that has no respect for human lives. Forgetting the Iranian people and building roads in Iraq and Syria just for the benefit of the regime is other fact of this corruption.
Of course, this represents only a small fraction of recent incidents in Iran. A catastrophe, whose effects have spread to the entire country in the form of a daily, silent massacre, has forced the state media to admit to it.
