The number of road accidents and fatalities in Iran has significantly increased during recent weeks. However, this is not the whole story, and observers believe that authorities are downplaying the actual aspect of this catastrophe by manipulating the statistics.
According to international observatory bodies, thousands of Iranians are losing their lives to car accidents every year. Domestic media describe dangerous roads in Iran as death halls due to dramatic growth in fatalities.
In its latest statistic, the country’s forensic reported the number of car accidents mortalities has increased by 9.6 percent and reached 17,000 in the past twelve months. the government had projected that this number would decrease to 15,000 in a year; however, like many other fields, the government has done nothing to save people’s souls.
Thirty-One Percent Increase in Car Accidents
According to the Young Journalists Club (YJC), affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), on December 12, 2021, the number of car accidents had a 31-percent increase in the past 12 months.
The number of car accidents and fatalities soar in Iran, while the urban and intercity traffic has witnessed a considerable decrease due to the pandemic. Therefore, non-standard and unsafe roads and streets along with inappropriate indigenous vehicles are the most critical factors for increasing car accidents.
Instead, the government in Iran tries to convince citizens that the “human factor,” ie drivers, is the main reason for this massive amount of car accidents victims. In effect, officials seek to downplay their faults and lay the blame on victims.
Statistics of Car Accidents Fatalities Are Manipulated
However, former Traffic Chief Seyyed Hadi Hashemi has recently admitted that the statistics of car accidents fatalities are not accurate, and they are dwindled by the manipulation of the stats. “The death toll of car accidents is still high despite the manipulation of the stats,” he said in an interview with Jameh 24 website on December 28, 2021.
Hashemi revealed that the officials classify traffic stats to traffic incidents type 1 and 2. “New clauses have written to ignore many fatalities among car accidents casualties, seeking to decrease the statistics. However, they failed,” He explained.
“In several cases, we do not count the death after 30 days of incidents such as throwing the vehicle into the water or exiting from the road and its 2.5-meter sidelines among car accidents casualties,” Hashemi said. “In truth, we are deceiving and removing the issue utterly.”
State-Backed Mafia Is Behind Car Accidents Fatalities
In his interview, Hashemi pointed to the dire situation of roads and this social crisis. “Don’t be fooled by those who claim that ‘Our vehicles have necessary safety,’” he added. “These are deceptive tricks, and we have no safety in the vehicles’ field. The mafia of vehicles is so powerful that no one in the country can deal with it.”
Hashemi implicitly mentioned the most powerful official Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his mysterious office with billions of dollars in value, and the IRGC as those who pull the strings of Iran’s economy.
Furthermore, in its edition on December 20, 2021, Jahan-e San’at daily warned about the “seven-head dragon of corruption” in the automaking industry. Seyyed Abdoljavad Shamsuddin, Khamenei’s representative in Bandar Anzali in the northern province of Gilan, attacked the government. “Why automakers are unprofitable?” he said.
“Compare indigenous automaking companies with other companies across the globe! You have shut the country’s doors for importing cars; you do not let cars import to the country and prevent competition. You also ignore the increasing efficiency and quality of [indigenous] cars. Look at global automaking companies; how many employees do they have? How many products do they have? How much are their products?” he continued.
Nonetheless, one of the Parliament [Majlis] Presidium members, Mojtaba Youssefi, admitted to the importance of unsafe roads and low-quality cars in Iran’s massive number of car accident fatalities. “Iran is one of the most accident-prone countries in the world, which in addition to high mortality, we see disability caused by accidents,” the Majlis’s official website ICANA quoted him as saying on December 26, 2021.
“On average, 17,000 people are losing their lives to road accidents in the country every year. It means that 20 out of every 100,000 people are annually dying in car accidents,” he added. “Indigenous cars lack adequate quality, and we have time and again repeated this issue. However, the two automaking companies of the country have yet to act to improve their products.”
