55 people per day: Iranian official reveals shocking car accident statistics

Azerbaijan, Baku, August 7 / Trend, S. Isayev, T. Jafarov/

Around 55 people die in Iran daily, due to car accidents, Deputy head of Iranian road police, Mohammad Karim Khosravi said, Shahrkhabar newspaper reported.

He was citing the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization statistics.

"Annually, about 40,000 people die in Iran from unnatural causes, and 50 percent of them are connected with car crashes," he said. "20,000 people per year, makes approximately 55 people per day."

He went on to note that deaths in car accidents is the second biggest cause of death in the country, while in the world, the same reason holds 9th place.

Regarding the injured people in car accidents, Khosravi noted that this number is approximately 2100 people per day.

He said that Iran experiences car accidents 25 times more than Japan does, and 2 times more than Turkey, annually.

Refering to the reasons for such high rate of deaths regarding car accidents, Iranian experts say country roads are meant for low-speed driving, while drivers do not take that into consideration. Another reason is that there is lack of road signs on the roads in some areas.

Also, the car manufacturers in Iran use old or used spare parts for vehicles, which also adds to the big figure of car accident related deaths, experts say.