Deputy of Bishkek City Kenesh Chyngyz Zhumaliev believes that the citizens who drive personal cars should pass repeated examinations for driving licence. He said this on 20 February at a meeting of the BHC Standing Commissions on Housing and Architecture, Transport and Development.

In his opinion, the reason for traffic jams in the capital is not only the large number of cars, but also the low driving culture.

‘Everyone sitting here knows that licences were bought or given as gifts. In a good way, we should have taken away everyone's licence and sent them to retake the exams. Then we would see how many drivers would really be able to retake them,’ the deputy said.

In his opinion, this could help to bring order.

‘In some residential neighbourhoods, replace traffic lights with: ‘stop signs in four directions,’ he said, noting that this would help make traffic more organised.

The deputy also spoke about the need to revise the location of pedestrian crossings in the capital.

In his opinion, the citizens have become less active and prefer pedestrian crossings to be right next to their homes.

 He expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that after the construction of shopping centres, new crossings immediately appear. As an example, the deputy cited the section of the motorway from Sovetskaya Street to Almatinka, where, according to him, there are at least eight pedestrian crossings. He proposed to analyse their validity and stressed that citizens should move between traffic lights, and not cross the road every 50-100 metres.