Highways Number One Killer in Turkey
According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), the number of road accident deaths was approximately ten times the number of deaths caused by wars, natural calamities and terrorist activity in the past 25 years. According to the TUIK’s nationwide statistics, every 12th motor vehicle in Turkey was involved in a road accident in 2007, causing a total of 5,007 deaths and about 190,000 injuries. Another grim statistic recorded by the Institute is Turkey’s 2000 deaths in the past 8 months alone with Turkey’s supposedly most dangerous season, Winter, not even on the books yet. The President of Turkey’s Prevention of Traffic Accidents Association, Hitay Güner, justified his reasoning for the installation of radars to catch speeders on the roads. “Speed causes the largest number of accidents, generally, because drivers lose control of their vehicles.”
Observers are noting that the most common time for fatal accidents is during long holidays and are encouraging the authorities to introduced new local traffic regulations. For example, during Bayram this month, there were 150 car accidents, causing 100 deaths and over 500 injuries.
Another interesting fact reporting by the TUIK is the average age of cars driven in Turkey. One in every 5 cars registered in the country is at least 20 years old and over 12% of owned vehicles are over 27 years old. These facts introduce the possibility that not all the accidents are caused by human error, but rather because most vehicles are simply too old to be on the road. Authorities are suggesting that the government introduce incentives for Turkish citizens to invest in new cars and to trade in their older models. However, currently there are no plans to introduce such incentives in the government’s agenda.
The World Health Organization has also reported that Turkey is not the only country that suffers from inordinate casualty numbers from road accidents, as road accidents are the number one cause of death in the world.
Adam Hazzout
