Uzbek Roads

2009 07-08 - Uzbekistan


Only slightly less organised than their currency situation, though reasonably well maintained, Uzbek roads have their own rules. For the most part people travel in the same direction on one side of the road. - usually the right. How big one side of the road is is dependent on the number of vehicles travelling in each direction, how aggressive everyone is driving and if those in front hear the horns of those wishing to squeeze past! In the cities I did sometimes see some road markings, but they were only treated as surface decoration or as if someone had accidentally spilled some white paint on the road... in very straight, evenly spaced lines. On intercity roads, donkey carts are more frequently encountered as the roads run through the widespread rural areas. These 'vehicles' follow their own rules and just need to be avoided by the rest of the traffic. On these roads the side-of-the-road situation is simplified a bit as they usually have concrete barriers running down the middle, which limits the number of cars, side-by-side across the roughly two lane highway, to three. These central concrete barriers have breaks in them every now and then, near-ish to side-roads, which are usually dirt tracks at right angles to the main road, but as they don't align and there are no feeder lanes or traffic lights, a couple of wonderful safety enhancing scenarios are created when trying to turn left (assuming you'd been driving on the right like most folk):
Either
1. overshoot your exit, manouvre into the fast lane before breaking hard, possibly to a standstill, to facilitate a U-turn across to the other side before driving to your exit
OR
2. Switch lanes through the gap that precedes your exit and drive to it against the flow of traffic.
Either option is entirely valid. This 'system' functions is because most people, other than bus drivers, don't drive that fast, the roads are not too crowded and everyone uses their horn liberally to announce their imminent attempt to overtake. I suppose the fairly regular and permanent police check points also help to sort out the chaos with their short one lane per direction funnel approximately every 30-50km. Other than the buses, lorries and donkey carts, the majority of vehicles on the road are old Ladas or new, Uzbek constructed, minivan Daewoos.