Why did Kazakhstan's road deaths fall faster than Uzbekistan's? what the timing of the decline shows, 2010-2019

Between 2010 and 2019 the estimated road traffic death rate in Kazakhstan fell by 44.5%, from 24.5 to 13.6 per 100 000 population, while in neighbouring Uzbekistan it fell by only 6.7%, from 10.4 to 9.7. This study uses the timing of Kazakhstan's decline to check the explanation that it was driven by rebuilt transit highways and stricter enforcement. Annual national statistics show that the decline was not gradual: 81% of the fall in the registered death rate between 2010 and 2018 came in three years, 2014, 2015 and 2017, while the rate changed little in 2011-2013. It affected every broad age group, including children, while the number of registered cars grew by about a fifth between 2013 and 2016. The death rate fell by similar amounts in Almaty (−27%), Astana (−31%) and the country as a whole (−29%) between 2010-2014 and the following years. By 2013, 1 727 km of the 2 787 km Western Europe-Western China corridor had already opened, during a period when the death rate fell by only 8.6%. The timing fits the new national traffic law and code of administrative offences of 2014-2015 better than the construction of this corridor, although the link is by date only and the cause of the 2017 fall remains open.