Right Hand Cars
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:
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.
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When I heard of this decision, through my wife, my understanding was that only imports would be banned, that is to say current owners would not be expected to dispose of their right-side steering cars, only those who did not have one, and now wanted to obtain one, would be affected.
However, the fact that these protests did not result in the expected ‘normal’ heavy handed approach is indeed a bright spot in my day…
Comment by Chris Merriman — 21 November 2006 @ 12:42 am
I meant to say, is it not also possible that there is a different reason for the increased likelihood of an accident occurring if one of the cars in the vicinity is a right-side steering model?
It may not be the height of political correctness to pose this question, but the sort of person who is able to afford such cars may be the catlyst in this equation, not purely the side of the steering wheel. I would be very interested if someone were to analyse the same accident stats, and include the income bracket of the people involved. If you have more money, for example, you’re more likey to have a mobile phone, than say a lada driver. If you’re driving and speaking on the phone, or fiddling with your nice car hi-fi, or otherwise distracted, you’re far more likely to have an accident than someone pottering along in their old Lada, who is paying more attention to the road…
Comment by Chris Merriman — 21 November 2006 @ 12:48 am
Also, check out the buttons on the Pres’s coat - the picture is too low-res to be sure, but whilst one of the blotches could be a popper-style fastening, the other (BELOW the collar) looks like it could a button; unless he wears women’s jackets, it is possible the image was reversed…
Yours sincerely,
Your favourite conspiracy nut, Chris :)
Comment by ChrisM — 30 November 2006 @ 12:11 pm