The situation on Kazakhstan’s roads has been deteriorating in recent years. According to the Legal Statistics Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office, while 13,300 road accidents were recorded in the country in 2020, last year there were more than 36,100 road accidents, or 2.7 times more. However, the number of vehicles has not increased significantly over this period, Energyprom.kz reported.
The number of road accident fatalities in 2025 was 2,300—slightly fewer than in 2024, but still a significant number. The number of injured in accidents was 49,200.
In the first two months of this year, 222 people died and 5,600 were injured on Kazakhstan’s roads.
Kazakhstan cannot be considered a country with a low road fatality rate. According to OurWorldinData, in 2023, the road fatality rate in Germany, for example, was 2.6 per 100,000 people. In Kazakhstan, it reached 12.7. From then until early 2026, the rate decreased, but only slightly, as the number of fatalities during this period decreased by only 8.4%.
Kazakhstan has the highest road fatality rate among Central Asian countries. Turkmenistan had the lowest rate in Central Asia in 2023: only 5.1 per 100,000 people. In Tajikistan, it was 5.7. In Russia, it was 8.4 per 100,000 people. In every fifth accident occurring on the roads of Kazakhstan, some defect in the road surface or markings was an indirect factor. In January-February of this year, the share of accidents occurring due to such factors was 22.4%. Many accidents in Kazakhstan’s cities and on country roads occur due to uneven road surfaces, potholes, poor road lighting, and the lack of pedestrian walkways and crossings.
