Every hour, two fatalities and twenty-nine injuries; this is the latest statistics on the state of traffic accidents in Iran, announced by Kamal Hadianfar, the head of the Traffic and Driving Police of NAJA (Law Enforcement Force) after the end of the first week of the current month of Farvardin (1401). This statistic means that in the month of Farvardin alone, close to one thousand and five hundred people have lost their lives in traffic accidents in Iran and more than twenty-one thousand people have been injured.

A notable point about this statistic, in addition to its severity, is that the mortality rate from accidents has not changed since 1398 (2019) and in the month of Bahman of that year, Kamal Hadianfar reported one death every thirty minutes due to traffic accidents. Although this statistic has decreased compared to before 1396 (three deaths per hour), the situation of traffic accidents in Iran is still one of the worst in the world.

Another point is that traffic accidents in Iran result in more human casualties than financial damages, and they are responsible for nearly one-third of all deaths in Iran; especially considering that, according to the confessions of the authorities of the Traffic Police, accidents in Iran are more of a cause of death and injury rather than financial losses.

Is the problem with domestic cars?

Although there is no doubt that a significant portion of car accidents in Iran are due to the lack of proper driving culture and adherence to laws, the high rate of fatalities and severe injuries resulting from accidents is more attributed to the safety deficiencies of domestically manufactured vehicles in Iran rather than the non-compliance of drivers with the law.

Low quality of domestic cars, severe lack of passenger safety due to incorrect design, weak car body, and especially the absence or malfunction of safety components such as airbags or ABS brakes are among the main reasons that have turned domestically produced cars in Iran into “death traps”; a term used by Kamal Hadianfar, the commander of Iran’s Traffic Police, to describe the safety situation of domestically produced cars at the end of last year (2021). He had harshly criticized the quality of cars produced by domestic car manufacturers and asked why they are producing “death traps”.

The background of this question, however, goes back to an incident where the lack of safety of domestically produced cars in Iran became more apparent than ever before; an incident in which as a result of a collision between fifty-one cars on the Behbahan-Ramhormoz road in Khuzestan province on December 2021, at least five people were killed and forty-one were injured.

According to Kamal Hadianfar, in this accident among fifty-one vehicles, the only car whose airbag opened and functioned properly was a Hyundai car made in South Korea. The airbags of the other forty-eight cars, all made in Iran, did not open. Additionally, as claimed by the commander of the traffic police, none of the domestically made cars’ ABS brakes functioned properly in this accident. Hadianfar even went further and said, “Iranian cars in accidents not only fail to protect their passengers, but also cause more damage and injuries to them.”

In continuation of the criticism of the authorities of the Traffic and Driving Police regarding the quality of cars made in Iran, Seyyed Hadi Hashemi, former commander of the Tehran Traffic and Driving Police, also asked his colleagues in the police not to number these cars in the month of Bahman last year (2021). He had said, “The police definitely have the ability not to plate such cars, and it is not their duty at all. The condition for a car to be plated is to have standard certifications. Now, if it has an airbag and it doesn’t work, what difference does it make if it doesn’t have an airbag? When the car is moving, the police will stop it, the car will catch fire, its fuel rail will have problems, its steering will have problems, and the police will see this in accidents, meaning that these cars have been made against these standards and the police can definitely prevent them from being numbered.”

Hashemi, without mentioning what actions he took during his time as the head of the Traffic and Driving Police to compel car manufacturers to improve the quality of their products, had added: “The low quality of domestic cars and the reports of technical defects are related to the hidden agenda of car manufacturers. In my opinion, the main reason for the lack of standards in our cars and the fact that they are causing deaths is the lack of government will to ensure their safety.” According to this former traffic police commander, “accidents happen all over the world, but a car with high quality and safety will only result in minor damage in an accident, whereas our cars, due to their lack of quality and safety, result in injuries and fatalities.”

The low quality of domestically made cars in Iran has also been approved by the current revolutionary parliament. Ismail Zahai, the vice chairman of the Construction Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, had explicitly stated in April of this year (2022) that domestically made cars were lacking in necessary quality and standards.

The clearest indication, however, to prove the poor quality and lack of sufficient safety in domestically produced cars in Iran is a report published by the Research Center of the Islamic Consultative Assembly in Tir month of 1396. According to this report, the reason why the average death rate for every ten thousand cars in the world is close to ten people, while in Iran this number is more than thirty-seven people, is that none of the domestically produced cars in Iran have sufficient safety and in safety tests conducted on these cars, none of them have been able to obtain a passing score.

Who is legally responsible for deaths caused by accidents?

In many countries, laws regarding transportation and vehicles require car manufacturers to repair their cars for free if there are any technical or safety defects. For example, in the year 2020 alone, major car manufacturers around the world recalled over one million cars for safety defects and repaired them for free. In the first six months of 2021, these manufacturers have already fixed over eighteen million cars for free due to safety defects.

In Iran, although the law for protecting consumer rights in the automotive industry was passed in July 2007, which obligates car manufacturers to address any defects in their vehicles, a simple internet search reveals that the latest recall issued by Iranian car manufacturers for safety defects was in 2013, and even then it was very limited and only for show.

Another point here is that in other countries, it is the police and the law that determine the fate of car manufacturers and force them to increase their standards according to the laws and regulations issued. However, in Iran, what actually happens (such as the aggressive reaction of car manufacturers to the statements of the traffic police commander about the safety defects of cars in the December 2021 accident in Ahvaz) shows the lack of compliance of car manufacturers with the warnings and recommendations of the police and even a lack of coordination between the government and car manufacturers to improve car safety.

As an example, while nowadays the installation of airbags and ABS brakes on cars is a basic and non-negotiable legal requirement in many countries, there is still no law (approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly), government regulation (approved by the Cabinet), or government directive (issued by the Cabinet or a ministry) in Iran regarding the mandatory installation of these two highly effective components for passenger safety. The only existing directive is the National Standard Organization’s guideline from 2009, which has been largely ignored by car manufacturers since 2018. The result of this negligence is the presence of airbags and ABS brakes only on paper, not on the actual cars.

However, in the midst of all this, the same letter from the National Standard Organization is sufficient to prove the legal responsibility of car manufacturers for deaths caused by severe safety deficiencies and malfunctioning safety equipment such as airbags and anti-lock brakes. Especially since, from a legal perspective, the malfunction of these essential safety devices is considered a serious defect and it is expected that they will function properly and flawlessly when needed. This means that, according to the claims of car manufacturers regarding the existence of these two safety tools on cars, it is reasonable and logical to expect that they will function flawlessly in the event of an accident, rather than, as the traffic police commander in Iran says, having no effect at all during a collision.

In this regard, the Islamic Penal Code in Iran considers causing unintentional bodily harm or unintentional murder through failure to comply with government regulations as a punishable offense in the section on deterrent punishments. According to Article 714 of this law, if failure to comply with the law and government regulations results in unintentional murder, the offender is held responsible and in addition to paying blood money to the victim’s family, imprisonment is also prescribed for them. As for car manufacturers, since according to the law on protecting consumer rights in the automotive industry, car companies are obligated to ensure the functioning of safety equipment in their cars, and according to the directive of the National Standard Organization, they are required to install safety equipment, they are responsible for deaths caused by the malfunction of this equipment in undeniable accidents.

In addition to the responsibility that car manufacturers in Iran can be held accountable for under the law, car companies will also be criminally responsible for their role in causing unintentional manslaughter. According to article 506 of the Islamic Penal Code, causing a crime to occur, meaning causing someone’s death or injury due to an action that would not have resulted in the crime if it had not been present, will result in the liability of the perpetrator.

About car manufacturers: According to the commanders of the traffic police in Iran, the proper functioning of airbags and anti-lock brakes can have a significant impact on preventing passenger deaths or reducing injuries. As a result, car manufacturers can be considered as a contributing factor in increasing damages, especially since according to Article 526 of this law, in the event of a crime caused by various reasons such as driver negligence, both the driver and the malfunction of the car’s safety equipment will be held responsible based on their level of fault.

This responsibility exists in Iran, but it is only limited to legal discussions among lawyers and attorneys. In reality, the unlimited power lies with automakers, which seems to have a political power higher than governments, specifically due to their economic interests behind the scenes.