SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Kurdish traffic police have recorded 850 car crashes in the Kurdistan Region in just three months this year, killing more than 120 people.
Spokesman for the Kurdistan Region’s Directorate of Traffic Police Asaad Karim said one of the main sources of traffic collision is drivers due to being speedy or using mobiles.
“Besides that, large numbers of car presence and the lack of having public transport system as well as the one-lane roads outside the cities are also among the main reasons of high traffic collision,” Karim told Esta Media Network.
Car crashes in the Kurdistan Region have killed 126 people and wounded 1,439 others between January and March in 2021, according to statistics obtained by Esta Media Network from the directorate of traffic police.
To reduce traffic collision, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has planned to build two-lane roads between the cities. However, the plan has not been implemented completely yet.
There are projects that started more than three years ago but have yet to be completed.
Spokesman of the Ministry of Construction and Housing Mariwan Hassan said the ministry was determined to implement the KRG plan to build highways.
“Steps have been made in this regard,” Hassan told Esta Media Network.
One of the projects that have yet to be completed is the Kalar-Sulaimani highway project, which its construction started in December 2017.
Only nearly 53 percent of the project has been implemented so far, according to authorities.
The current Kalar-Sulaimani road is known as “the road of death” among residents of the Kurdistan Region.
At least 12 people died and 79 others injured in traffic collision on the road in the first three months of this year, according to statistics Esta Media Network has obtained.
The KRG has only allocated 20 billion dinars (nearly $14 million) to resume the construction of the road this year, which is nearly half of the amount that is collected as road use taxes every year.
The KRG collects 10,000 to 50,000 dinars from drivers as road use taxes every year. The Kurdistan Region’s annual revenue from the road use taxes reaches nearly 36 billion dinars ($24.7 million).
Hassan said the ministry of construction and housing had not received “any amount of money from the road use taxes so as to rehabilitate the roads” in the Region.
The spokesman of the traffic police directorate also said the directorate was not aware of the money because “the money is directly deposited into the bank account of the ministry of finance.”
Karim, however, said 17 percent of the money was previously used to rehabilitate the roads.
As many as 1,133 people died and 12,000 others wounded in traffic collision in the Kurdistan Region in the past two years and the first three months of 2021. Comparing it to the three years of fighting Islamic State (ISIS) militants which led to the death of over 1,700 members of the Peshmerga forces and injuries of 12,000 others, the Kurdistan Region is still in war, but with traffic collision.
