TEHRAN – Road crashes claimed lives of 7,561 people during the first five months of this year (started March 21), according to the latest data released by Iran’s Forensics Organization.

Over the five-month period, 5,918 men and 1,643 women were victims of road accidents.

Provinces of Fars, Khorasan Razavi and Tehran had the highest road fatalities with 612, 543 and 542 deaths, respectively.

In the first five months of this year, the number of injured people who referred to forensic centers in the country declined by 0.3 percent, as 157,836 got injured, of whom 112,327 were men and 45,509 were women. 

Moreover, the number of injured in traffic accidents fell by 0.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

In the aforementioned period, Tehran, Khorasan Razavi and Isfahan provinces ranked the first three provinces with the highest number of injuries.

Also, the highest number of people died in crashes on August 2008 and the lowest in April was in April.

Over the Iranian calendar month of Mordad (July 23- August 22), A total of 1,729 people died in traffic accidents, while the number of casualties increased by 4.4 percent compared to the same period last year.

Road traffic injuries also dropped by 2.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

Mordad was also the deadliest month among the first five months of this year, while the first month of this year recorded the lowest casualties. 

According to the World Health Organization, road traffic injuries caused an estimated 1.35 million deaths worldwide in the year 2016.

In other words, one person is killed every 25 seconds. Only 28 countries, representing 449 million people (seven percent of the world's population), have adequate laws that address all five risk factors (speed, drunk driving, helmets, seat-belts and child restraints). 

Over a third of road traffic deaths in low- and middle-income countries are among pedestrians and cyclists. However, less than 35 percent of low- and middle-income countries have policies in place to protect these road users.

The average rate was 17.4 per 100,000 people. Low-income countries now have the highest annual road traffic fatality rates, at 24.1 per 100,000, while the rate in high-income countries is lowest, at 9.2 per 100,000.

FB/MG