KZBlog

As has been widely reported, on the 14th of November, Nazarbayev announced that Kazakhstan will ban cars with right-side steering wheels. The reason cited is that these vehicles cause traffic accidents, and presumably there is a reason why nations that drive on the right side of the road tend to have cars with wheels on the left side and vice versa. In Kazakhstan, drivers drive on the right side. Right-handed vehicles come from Japan and tend to be cheaper. However, it is not at all clear what owners of these cars are supposed to do. The government has made no plans as of yet to compensate them for banning their vehicles. Some plan to try to sell them in Russia, or convert them to left-handed vehicles but these will be expensive and difficult solutions.

According to New Eurasia there are 117 000 such vehicles in the country. That’s a lot and a potentially large loss of money for a lot of people, even though the President’s announcement appears to make some sense, and aims at public safety. There are questions of whether this is something the President himself, and the Security Council should be taking up instead of the police or the Ministry of Transport, but leaving that aside, the proposal makes sense if the facts are accurate.

Sean Roberts attributes the displeasure over the law to an emerging middle-class who can afford cheap cars (which are still better than Ladas or 20 year old Muskovichs).

And so in Almaty and Semi-Palatinsk a protest/demonstration was organized and according to a participant, Nothing bad happened to anyone, despite being in violation of laws on assembly by not giving enough notice to the local authorities! Which is really good. Hopefully the idea that one can voice ones opinion publically, creatively and en masse without there being any trouble, will take hold.

There is also this clever (if potentially address-mining) web peition with a picture of the President in right-sided vehicle which has since been taken down.

At the same time, as no resident of Kazakhstan would deny, The Washington Post is reporting on other car-related problems like pollution. And if you haven’t seen This post by narcogen on driving in Almaty, you haven’t lived.