Traffic accidents kill 180, injure hundreds in Kurdistan's Sulaimani in 2019

Traffic accidents claimed the lives of 180 people and resulted in hundreds being injured throughout 2019 in the Kurdistan Region's province of Sulaimani, according to numbers just released by government officials.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Traffic accidents claimed the lives of 180 people and resulted in hundreds being injured throughout 2019 in the Kurdistan Region's province of Sulaimani, according to numbers just released by government officials. 

Sulaimani Traffic Directorate spokesman Major Karwan Muhammad announced on local radio that his department documented 1,247 traffic accidents over the course of the year. 

He added that, of those who perished in lethal incidents, 141 were passengers in a vehicle at the time of an accident, four were drivers, and 35 were pedestrians, struck by a moving car or truck. 

Muhammad attributed the causes of these accidents to drivers' excessive speed, distracted driving, ignoring traffic safety guidelines, or operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.  

On Jan. 11, three teenagers were pronounced dead on the scene of a car accident, with a fourth taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries in Sulaimani's Darbandikhan district. 

Read More: Horrific traffic accident in Sulaimani leaves 3 teenagers dead, 1 critically injured 

On the same day, one person was killed and three others injured when a tractor collided with a taxi cab in the Chwarqurna region, east of the Kurdistan Region's capital of Erbil. 

Assad Karim, a spokesperson for the Erbil General Traffic Directorate, told Kurdistan 24 last year that the number of car accidents is growing at an alarming rate each year in the Kurdistan Region. 

Related Article: Number of car accidents claiming lives in Kurdistan ‘rising’ in 2019: Official 

According to 2018 data, in the autonomous region’s capital of Erbil alone, 1,384 traffic accidents occurred, resulting in the death of 262 people and injury of 1,401 more. 

Karim said a major cause for traffic violations and accidents is the lack of awareness among drivers, especially the disregard of traffics rules and laws. 

However, poor road quality, as well as inadequate traffic laws, have also been blamed

As part of its agenda, the new Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cabinet plans to renovate and construct two-lane roads linking provinces and large cities in the Kurdistan Region with construction already underway in some places.