ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – With the year not even over, the number of deaths in car accidents so far in Iraqi Kurdistan are about 50 percent higher than for all of 2012, according to a police report.
The main causes of death and injury on Kurdistan’s roads are speeding, failure to wear seat belts, aggressive road behavior and driving aggressively and without heeding road signs, the report says.
It adds that an estimated 223 people have been killed in 828 accidents in the Kurdistan Region this year. In 2012, the total number of deaths for all the year was 155, in 614 road incidents. That means, with the year still not over, the number of deaths so far are more than 50 percent higher than for all of last year.
”The cause of many car accidents is that drivers disobey driving laws and road rules,” said Fazil Haji Hussein, a spokesman at the police traffic department in Erbil. He admitted that bad roads contributed to accidents, but said the majority happened because drivers had overstepped safety limits.
Drivers can get away with unsafe driving because laws are not strictly enforced, Hussein admitted, saying that enforcing the laws was the solution to cutting down road accidents. “Traffic laws need to be reformed,” he said.
He explained that there was no system of police pulling over drivers who commit an offence. Drivers often find out about the offences and are forced to pay the fines only when they go to renew a driver’s license or register another car in their name.
Hussein said that under the present system bad drivers are given no immediate correction, and continue their bad driving habits.
Jeremy Oliver, an American resident of Kurdistan, believes that bad drivers who drive aggressively or without even checking their mirrors or heeding road signs, are the ones who cause most accidents.
“Things could improve a little by having traffic police actually pull people off the road when they spot an offence,” Oliver said, advocating greater enforcement by police.
Foreign drivers, often used to orderly traffic, sometimes complain that in Kurdistan there is no spirit of drivers helping each other in the interests of safety for everyone.
Shahram Saaid, an Erbil resident who has lived in the United States for more than 10 years, believes that drivers also do not care about being fined because the amounts are too little.
“For going through a red light you sometimes see someone getting a ticket. But the amounts are too little to make anyone care about following the law,” he said.
Night driving in Kurdistan is hazardous, especially between the main cities of Erbil, Duhok and Sulaimani. Cars share the same narrow road – where in places overtaking becomes extremely hazardous. The Duhok-Zakho road, for instance, has been dubbed “the road of death” because of the number of car accidents on the route.
Pedestrians also face the hazards of bad driving: The practice of stopping at Zebra crossings to let foot-traffic pass is largely ignored – despite fines for not stopping.
There are more than 1 million vehicles on Kurdistan roads, and the number is growing as car prices and gasoline charges continue to fall.
A recent fall in gas prices has been generally welcomed by the public, but has also fed fears of even more cars on the crowded roads.
