Road traffic injuries in Iran, a fast look on a disappointing report

Each year 50 million road traffic injuries (RTI) take place around the globe. As a consequence 1.2 million people lose their life.Ninety percent of all RTI deaths happen in developing or middle income countries (Koptis 2003, Murray1996). While pedestrians, bikers ,motorcyclists, and bus and minibus occupants are reported as the main victims of RTI in developing countries, car occupants constitute the major subgroup of RTI death in developed countries. In some Asian countries motorcyclists comprise over 50% of RTI death. Estimated number of hospitalized cases after road traffic injuries and outpatient cases per one RTI death is 15, and 70 respectively(Gururaj, 2000, Varghese 2003,Mohan 2002, Martinez 1996,Mock 1999and 2003, Evans 1991, London 2002). It is believed that by the year 2020 RTI death will be considerably decreased in developed countries and increased among developing nations (Murray1996).
In 2003, RTI death rate in Iran was estimated to be 34.2 in 100,000 population while the world average was 28.8. RTI death seems to be higher in provinces with high travelling rate but low ratio of highway roads to non-highway roads. In some provinces RTI death in rual areas were higher than that of urban areas. RTI Death rate was consistently 3-5 times more in men than in women. 46.8% of RTI deaths happend on streets inside villages and cities. Rural roads oustside villages was the place of 19.5% of RTI deaths while 21.5% of death happened on intercity roads. Only 8.5% of RTI deaths took place on highways (inside or outside the cities). Motorcyclists constituted 51.7 % of RTI deaths. Pedestrains, four-wheeler occupants, and occupants of vehicles with more than four wheels comprised 17.5%, 14.9% and 11.3% of total RTI deaths. 49.1% of all RTI deaths happened immidiately after accident and on the accident scene, while 13.9% and 28.3% of them happened during transferring to hospitals and after hosptalization respectively. 95% of RTI deaths happened within 2 hours after accidents. Only 14% of RTI victims were transferred to hospitals by ambulance and just 40% of RTI victims were transferred to hospitals within 20 minutes after accident. In 2001, Iranian experts guesstimated that RTI causes 600 million US dollars loss in one year.

Source: Naghavi M, Ja'fari N, Alaeddini F, Akbari ME, Epidemiology of external causes of injuries in I.R. Iran. 2004, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran-Iran

My comment: I think the numbers in the report are self-expressing. Only 12 provinces were included in this study and all major provinces plus Tehran and its suburbs were excluded. If added, Tehran in itself with 13 million population and millions of motorcyclist can make major changes to the presented rates and propotions .
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