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News and Comment by KT:
During the last four years, according to the latest data from the South of Kurdistan, more than 4,200 people have died in road traffic accidents. The head of traffic police, Mr Yoursef Bazianai, stated that the majority of these accidents were due to poor road conditions and to drivers’ lack of skills and road safety knowledge.
He confirmed to the Kurdish website Xandan that between 1 January and 1 July this year 400 people were killed on the roads. He also claimed that the government is doing something about the problem, stating that the level of car accidents has been rising worldwide.
However, Kurdistan’s situation is due to a lack of adequate management control systems. For example, in the UK during the last year 1,901 people died in car accidents and yet the UK has 63.1 million people compared to the South of Kurdistan’s population of 4.5 million. The road traffic death rate in our region is proportionately about six times higher than in the UK.
Our roads and traffic system haven’t changed since the Saddam era. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) needs to take the issue seriously and act to prevent this needless waste of life. One step would be to restrict the current high levels of car imports. Other measures should include:
- Implementing a strategy to expand and promote public transport, with more bus and train services.
- Making it harder for people to get driving licenses.
- Improving the roads in the cities and building a highway linking major cities such as Dhok, Erbil and Sulaymani.
This is a serious problem that requires urgent attention, I cannot believe the negligence on the part of authorities. 4,200 deaths does not equate to 6 times higher death rates than the UK as the UK is 14 times as populated, but has fewer than half the amount of fatalities on the road. It means that you are over 31 times more likely to die on the road in Southern Kurdistan!