Azerbaijan's Traffic Deaths: Time to Buckle Up
By Fariz Ismailzade, 2007 John Smith Fellow
Eight persons dead in a head-on car collision. Twenty-nine soldiers injured in an army vehicle crash. "A devil by the name of Gazel" read a recent headline in the Azerbaijani opposition newspaper Musavat , taking aim at Russian-made Gazel mini-vans, a frequent cause of Azerbaijan's growing number of fatal traffic accidents. The attention may be on the machines, but the problem appears to lie elsewhere.
Statistics from the Baku Highway Police Office highlight the growing problem. In the first half of 2007, out of 1,284 traffic accidents nationwide some 388 persons were killed and 1,430 were wounded. Fifty-three percent of those killed were young adults and 109 were children, according to police data cited in a report from the United Nations Department of Public Information (UNDPI). Just under half of the accidents (640) and injuries (713) take place in the Azerbaijani capital, which has long been struggling with a meta-sizing car population.
Those numbers represent a near twofold increase over the past eight years. In 1998, 595 people were killed in 1,998 traffic accidents, compared with 1,027 deaths in 2006 from some 3,197 accidents.
Pedestrians are not much safer than drivers: they account for over 44 percent of the deaths so far this year, often killed by drunk drivers and speeding.
Police officials put the blame on the growing number of cars in the country (some 40,000 imports per year), driven by expanding income levels tied to the oil boom.
Some observers cite other reasons. Long-distance bus drivers hold their position to scrap together a living, with road rules a secondary concern. Driving licenses are often given out based on connections, rather than on a driver's proven ability to maneuver a car. As elsewhere in the South Caucasus, few Azerbaijanis wear seat belts and child seats are almost non-existent. Sporadic campaigns by the police to reinforce the seat belt law are met with skepticism and seen as a way to generate cash. They often result in failure, as drivers pretend to wear seatbelts while the campaign is on and forget about the rule as soon as it is over.
"It makes me feel uncomfortable," said Baku taxi driver Nabi Guliyev about the belts. "One cannot escape what God has decided will happen," he added. This fatalistic mentality often appears to stop drivers from following basic safety rules, further contributing to the problem.
In April, a few non-governmental organizations responded to the UNDPI's call for a public campaign to "take an active role in raising awareness about the societal impact of road traffic injuries." The Ministries of Health, Internal Affairs, Youth and Sport, Education, and Transportation have also joined the effort, and the police designated July a "safety month." Television ads on the topic have appeared, while youth activists have hung some 8,000 posters at traffic lights that warn drivers to "Be patient! Don't hurry!"
While the efforts made for a useful campaign, budgetary restraints necessarily limited the scope. No systematic, coordinated response to Azerbaijan's traffic worries exists. Until it does, there can be little hope for a turnaround.
This article first appeared in Eurasia Insight on 3rd August 2007 republished on this site with permission of the author.
Editor's Note: Fariz Ismailzade is a freelance writer based in Baku and is the chairman of the Safe Drive Association, an organization he formed after the death of a relative and friend.