TEHRAN – Traffic-related accidents claimed lives of 4,129 Iranians during the past 3 months (April 21-July 22), traffic police chief Seyed Kamal Hadianfar has said.

“Some 80 percent of the accidents happened mainly due to unsafe speed, overtaking, distracted and drowsy driving,” he added.

“During the Noruz holidays (starting on March 21) for 20 days, we dispatched some 107,000 traffic police and relief forces to ensure the road safety for the passengers, which ended up reducing the road crashes by 17.6 percent,” he highlighted.

Although, dispatching 107,000 forces to stay guard for 365 days a year is not possible, and such incidents again increases after special occasions, he added.

“To reduce car crashes, we must develop facilities and emergency fleet, both in emergency medical services and traffic polices,” he noted, adding, actually, 33 organizations are responsible for traffic accidents reduction.

“Last year, some 17,318 were killed and 365,000 injured in road crashes, showing a slight decline [year on year],” he stated, noting, “We must still try to decrease the number of road accidents.”

Hadianfar in June said that road crash casualties amounted to 3,863 in the country during the first three months of the current year.

Although, road fatalities occurred in suburban areas have dropped by 9 percent during the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year, it increased by 4.6 in urban areas, he regretted.

Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled. More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among young adults ages 15-44.

FB/MG