Road Police Found Responsible for Fatal Chain Accident in Mashhad

Mohammad Hassan Osuli Safar, the special investigator of the chain accident case on the Shahid Shushtari highway in Mashhad, stated that "the negligence and shortcomings of the police in failing to inform travelers" were the main reasons for this deadly incident. He announced the indictment of the commander of the road police in Razavi Khorasan province and his release on bail. According to the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), Mr. Osuli Safar said: "Given the explicit confession of the accused (the commander of the road police in Razavi Khorasan), the statements and eyewitness evidence at the scene, the complaints of the injured parties, and the field investigations by the investigator at the accident scene, the negligence and shortcomings of the police in failing to inform travelers and the lack of warning signs regarding the occurrence of accidents have been established, and based on this, the accused has been indicted and released on legal bail." In the chain accident involving more than 50 vehicles on April 4 on the Shahid Shushtari highway in Mashhad, 84 people were injured, and a 9-year-old girl was killed. Previously, the state news agency IRNA reported two chain accidents on the Shahid Shushtari highway (Mashhad-Baghcheh and vice versa) and one chain accident on the Chenaran-Quchan road. According to IRNA, in these accidents, more than 130 vehicles collided, one young child was killed, and 89 others were transferred to the hospital. The cause of the accident was reported as "thick fog." Following these incidents, the prosecutor's office of the province summoned the head of the road police and the director general of road transportation in Razavi Khorasan province. According to ISNA, Mohammad Hassan Osuli Safar, the special investigator of this case, also stated that judicial investigations of the director general of road maintenance in Razavi Khorasan are ongoing, and information will be provided after the investigations are completed. Mohammad Hassan Osuli Safar urged officials to inform the public with "a sense of professional conscience and respect for the rights of the people" and not to defend the accused without reason. He considered defending the accused as "interference in judicial matters" and pointed out that this issue is "subject to judicial prosecution." Traffic accidents in Iran claim thousands of lives annually, with statistics particularly spiking during the Nowruz holidays. In this context, according to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Iskandar Momeni, deputy commander of the police force, announced on April 9 that during Nowruz 96, one person lost their life every 71 minutes due to road accidents in Iran. Simultaneously, Pir Hossein Kolivand, the head of the country's emergency services, stated that since the beginning of Nowruz travel, 22,508 accident victims have been transferred to hospitals. Taghi Mehri, the head of traffic police, also announced that the number of fatalities in traffic accidents during Nowruz 96 decreased by 7% compared to the previous year. Last year, on April 14, it was reported that 380 people lost their lives due to car accidents during these holidays. Previously, the Central Insurance Research Institute of Iran had announced that among 190 countries worldwide, Iran has the highest road mortality rate after the African country of Sierra Leone. The number of traffic accident victims in Iran until the eighth month of last year was over 11,000.