Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, January 10, 2020—At least 19 people have died and 24 have been injured in a bus crash in northern Iran. The bus, which was heading to Gonbad (500km northeast of Tehran), veered off the road and plunged into a ravine as it was passing through the Khatirkuh region, north of Savadkuh county.
A pregnant woman and four children under the age of six were reportedly among the victims.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, sent her condolences to the families of the victims. “Wishing for the speedy recovery of those injured. The loss of our compatriots in such preventable accidents only adds to our anger and grief,” Mrs. Rajavi said.
My deepest condolences to the survivors of the 19 victims of the bus crash on Tehran-Gonbad Road. Wishing for the speedy recovery of those injured. The loss of our compatriots in such preventable accidents only adds to our anger and grief #Iran
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) 9 January 2020
Iranian officials were quick to blame technical issues and brake failure as the cause of the incident. But the reality that officials did not admit was the lack of measures and precautions by the government to prevent such incidents.
Iran has some of the most dangerous roads in the world. According to the regime’s own media, more than 20,000 people are killed and 800,000 injured annually in road accidents in Iran.
According to many Iranian and international experts, Iran suffers from a lack of standard roads and transportation safety infrastructure. Vehicles are often substandard and poorly maintained, and there aren’t enough traffic signs to prevent road incidents.
Despite warnings, Iranian authorities haven’t taken any measures to improve road conditions and reduce the rates of accidents in the country’s roads.
Iran’s road casualty rate is 25 times more than Japan and twice that of Turkey. Even the UK, which has three times more cars on its roads than Iran, has up to 32 times fewer accidents on its roads.
With 800,000 road accidents per year, the mullahs’ ruled #Iran holds the world’s top record.
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) January 9, 2020
Problems such as lack of vehicle maintenance and poor road conditions are among the main factors that cause road accidents. According to Iranian experts, the number of deaths on Iran’s roads has already exceeded the casualties of the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq.
Iranian officials and media lay the blame on the people. In September 2018, a state-run television channel claimed, “According to police, exhaustion, dizziness, speed driving and illegal overtaking are among the main reasons for high accident rates.”
Iranian officials constantly blame drivers as the culprits of road incidents and intentionally ignore vehicle and road conditions, which are two very important elements in causing or preventing accidents.
The main reason behind the high fatality rates in Iran’s roads is corruption at the highest levels of power in the Iranian regime. Iranian officials and their affiliated companies and organizations are in control of the country’s wealth, but they refrain from allocating the minimum required amount to construction projects, and they spend most of the country’s construction budget on the needs of the Khatam al-Anbia industrial complex, which is owned by the Revolutionary Guards, and the Astan-e Quds Foundation, a so-called charity foundation that is making regime authorities wealthy out of the pockets of ordinary Iranians.
