Mongolia has a de jure standard of right-hand traffic. In other words, regardless of there is a road or not, two vehicles will pass each other on the right hand side of the driver. All regulations and infrastructure related Mongolia’s traffic have been designed for vehicles to have the driving wheel on the left.
However, 54 percent of 440,000 vehicles had a de facto standard on vehicles having the driving wheel on the right hand side in 2015. In the same year, a total of 37,000 vehicles were imported into Mongolia, and 34,000 of them were produced in Japan. If we look at the value, these exports were worth 210 million USD, meaning 180 million USD (86 percent) were spent on Japanese-made cars.
The Japan-Mongolia Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) has waived the import taxes for up-to-36-months-old cars as well as brand new cars, and reduced the taxes by five percent for cars older than 36 months. It is going to entail further increase in the number of cars with the driving wheel on the right. Japan bans using vehicles more than 10 years old; therefore, there is a strong interest in selling 7-8-year-old cars away. According to the information from the Mongolian Customs General Administration, total exports from Mongolia to Japan were worth 72 million USD in 2011-215 while the sum reached 2 billion USD vice versa. Approximately 1.3 billion USD of the total exports from Japan to Mongolia accounted for vehicles, 66 of which were Priuses.
MORE ACCIDENTS AS ROADS IMPROVE
Traffic can be made safer, faster, and less congested when the movement of vehicles is suited for whether the driving wheel is on the right or on the left.
According to the data from traffic police, 2014 had a total of 11,630 accidents, 59 of which had vehicles that were not aligned with the regulations because they had the driving wheel on the right. If we look at 2015, there were 41,064 accidents, 64.4 percent of which had the driving wheel on the wrong (right) side. It can also be seen that the traffic accidents increased by almost 400 percent within one year.
In order to overtake another car, the driver of a vehicle with the driving wheel on the right has to move to the left fully so that the road ahead can be seen. Besides speeding, it is one of the causes of traffic accidents. The multiple year data show us that, when roads improve – especially in Ulaanbaatar, there are increasingly more traffic accidents.
Mongolia paved 6,351 kilometers of road in 2012-2015, and is planning to pave another 5,700 kilometers in 2016-2021. The countryside roads are usually two-way, and have no lines separating the lanes. It causes drivers to pass each other with high speed and without visual aid to distinguish between the lanes. Also, many of the accidents are triggered by drivers taking a sudden turn to avoid potholes.
Furthermore, the overall traffic slows down because drivers spend too much time trying to get their hand out of the front passenger’s window as many locations have the tolling stations on the left side. In many cases, drivers have to get out of the vehicle to pay their tolls or receive a parking ticket. The rule of the left lane having cars driving with high speed no longer applies because most of the vehicles now have the driving wheel on the right. In other words, we no longer have difference in speed in the two lanes of road. Regardless of the number of lanes, we do not have differences in vehicle speed anymore. Drivers are too aggressive that, if you demand them to go to the right lane, you might end up verbally – and even physically – attacked.
Many of the drivers on the countryside road do not change between high and low beam headlights, which forces others to use their senses rather than eyesight. Vehicles with the driving wheel on the right are adjusted in a way that their high beams are directed to the side of the road. So, when these cars are driven on a left-hand road, their high beam headlights are directed to the road making it harder for the driver coming from the opposite direction to see the road. This is why special tapes, which are paid for, are put up on headlights of vehicles at the British-French border because they have different standards. If those special tapes are not there, drivers are imposed fees wherever they go.
SOLUTION IS READY
The difference in the right and left hand rules originates from the Middle Ages. As settlements developed, people started using the same roads. While most people were right-handed, they used to carry their swords on their left side, so that they are ready to grab the sword with their right hand. This is where the left-hand rule comes from. By the 1700s, farming developed intensively in America and France, which led to horse carriages carrying food between towns and cities. People mounted on the horse on the left to see their left side more clearly and to whip the horse on the right. It started the right-hand traffic standard.
History tells us that every country has selected either the right or left hand side rule to ensure greater traffic safety. It led to regulations prohibiting the imports of vehicles that were made differently to their standards. Almost 80 percent of Cambodia’s vehicles had the driving wheel on the wrong side. However, since the new century came, they have imposed a pan to ensure the driving wheels are on the right side. Our northern neighbor Russia also started changing the location of the driving wheel of Japanese-made cars to adhere to their rules.
During the time of Prime Minister S.Batbold, Mongolia ratified the national strategy to ensure traffic safety in 2012. This strategy laid out that the percentage of vehicles with the driving wheel on the left to be increased to 75 percent in 2015 from the baseline of 54 percent, and 95 percent in 2020. Unfortunately, as they say that Mongolian legislations only last for three days, no one provided oversight on the implementation of this strategy, and the vehicles that have the driving wheel are trending to dominate in the pool. It should fall under the responsibilities of the Ministry of Road and Transportation. However, given that Mongolian ministries always change their structures and names, many streams of work are simply forsaken without any responsible owners.
What would be the most effective thing to do? If we pass a law saying that all vehicles will have the driving wheel on the left by 2020 and importing cars with wrong standards is banned, how many lives will we save, and how smoother will we make the traffic movements? If we follow the trend and legalize vehicles that have their driving wheel on the left, we would have completely opposite standards from our two neighboring countries. If that happens, it would make the efforts to make Mongolia a transit corridor go to waste, and have counter-effective outcomes. One has to wonder whether the authorities are contemplating about this issue.
What roadblocks is the government facing before they can pass the law to follow the right-hand standard? How many lives have to be lost before it is done?
2016.09.28
Trans. by B.Amar