The Tashkent Kengash has once again instructed the Traffic Safety Department to adopt a plan to reduce road traffic fatalities

Tashkent Kengash once again tasks UBDD with preparing a plan to reduce traffic fatalities

Lieutenant Colonel Ilkhom Idirov has been appointed as the new head of the Tashkent City Police Department's Traffic Safety Administration (UBDD).

Prior to this, he served as the head of the Administrative Practice Department of the Road Safety Service (SBDD) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan, and also headed the traffic safety departments of the Kashkadarya and Syrdarya regions. In this position, he replaced Mukhammad Adilov, who enrolled in the master's program at the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (a requirement for appointment to leadership positions in the internal affairs bodies).

This week, the Kengash of People's Deputies of Tashkent heard a report from the UBDD, presented by the Deputy Head of the UBDD, Elmurod Alimov. The Kengash assessed the administration's work in fulfilling the tasks assigned to it by legislation as satisfactory, noting a "stabilization of the situation" in the field of road safety.

Deputies were instructed to develop a plan of "concrete and targeted measures" for the administration within a week to prevent fatal road traffic accidents. At the same time, specific target indicators for reducing injuries and deaths are not provided. The Kengash had already issued a similar instruction at the beginning of 2025.

In addition, it was instructed, jointly with the Main Department of Transport and Development of Road Transport Infrastructure of Tashkent, to accelerate work on the comprehensive improvement of infrastructure, digitalization of the traffic management system, including the installation of cameras based on the analysis of accident hotspots, as well as equipping buses with recorders to record traffic violations by drivers of other vehicles.

The published decision of the Kengash does not specify the figures for injuries and deaths in traffic accidents for the half-year, but "Gazeta" managed to review this data.

The total number of officially registered traffic accidents decreased by 9.5%, or by 44 accidents, — from 464 to 420.

The number of injury cases decreased by 10%, or by 44, — from 438 to 394. Meanwhile, the number of deaths resulting from traffic accidents remained at the level of 26.

Based on the results of the entire last year, the Kengash published statistics on such cases. A total of 1,225 traffic accidents were registered over the year (a decrease of 4.3%), the number of bodily injury cases was 1,135 (minus 4.5%), and fatal cases numbered 90 (1.1%, or 1 case, fewer).

Over the six months, photo and video recording systems, as well as traffic police inspectors, registered 3,011,466 traffic violations in Tashkent.

Of these, 2,307,865 violations were recorded by automated systems. Traffic police officers processed 703,601 violations, including 21,208 gross ones, of which 2,047 were cases of driving under the influence. In addition, protocols were drawn up against 165,390 pedestrians. In total, 43,769 vehicles were placed in impound lots.

The UBDD noted a noticeable reduction in certain types of traffic accidents, attributing this to measures to improve infrastructure and digitalization.

In particular, the number of traffic accidents related to speeding decreased by 47.8% — from 23 to 12. At the same time, no such accidents were recorded in the Yakkasaray and Almazar districts.

The number of traffic accidents related to overtaking violations involving driving into the oncoming lane decreased by 55.2% — from 29 to 13.

The number of traffic accidents caused by failure to obey traffic signals decreased by 50% — from 24 to 12, as did cases of drunk driving — from 6 to 3.

At the same time, in the "Uzbekistan-2030" Strategy, the goal aimed at reducing the number of road deaths is formulated very vaguely, even though this is one of the most acute socially significant problems in the country.

The real goal of state policy should be zero tolerance for road deaths, noted Bobur Siradjev, an expert on sustainable mobility and infrastructure policy:

"Zero. The only number we should accept."

He also emphasized that the closed nature and unavailability of statistics prevent seeing the real picture in the field of road safety.

Aggregated indicators do not allow for a full analysis of causes and consequences. As a result, decisions may be made blindly (it is enough to recall the attempt to bring back fences in the middle of streets, which the city stopped after criticism in the media).

In Uzbekistan, a so-called "blindness" or selective law enforcement has already formed.

Mass daily traffic violations increasingly fall into "blind spots" and cease to be perceived as a problem: ignoring traffic controller signals, violating maneuvering rules, deliberate reckless driving, driving in bus lanes, running red lights, chaotic parking, abuse of hazard lights, and much more.

There are also many questions regarding the design of streets and roads, as well as the availability of properly designed infrastructure — an insufficient number of traffic lights and signs at intersections and crossings, the width of streets and lanes, incorrect turning radiuses, the absence of "visibility triangles," contradictions between road markings, signs, and traffic lights, and so on.

As a result, officially published statistics on traffic violations cannot be taken at face value.

"If we do not review the existing approaches to prevention, and do not move away from wave-like 'campaign months' toward systemic measures, we risk reaching a point of no return in the near future," Bobur Siradjev emphasized.