Traffic police in Khatirchi district of Navoiy province pulled over a Damas minivan belonging to a private kindergarten, discovering 20 children packed inside a vehicle designed to carry a maximum of 7 passengers. The incident was reported by the "Ovoza" program on the Renessans TV channel.
The vehicle was intercepted during a routine traffic safety sweep. "With all the public discussion regarding road accidents, you still choose to load this many people into the vehicle," the traffic inspector told the driver.
Farrukh Yakubov, the press secretary for the Navoiy Provincial Traffic Safety Department said that an administrative record was filed against the driver under Article 128–8 of the Code of Administrative Responsibility for violating passenger transport regulations. The driver was issued a fine of two base calculating values (BCV), equivalent to 824,000 soums.
According to the traffic official, officers also held an educational session with the driver to explain the catastrophic consequences that can arise from overcrowding vehicles with children.
Since the beginning of the year, 34 violations involving the illegal transportation of kindergarten students have been documented in the Navoiy province alone. These infractions were detected most frequently in the Nurata, Navbakhor, and Khatirchi districts.
This incident is part of a recurring pattern observed in recent months. In May, a Matiz carrying 14 kindergarteners crashed in the Navoiy province. Similar overcrowding cases were uncovered across the country: a minivan in the Surkhandarya province was caught transporting 32 children, a Damas driver in the Sirdarya province was stopped with 28 pupils, and another in the Namangan province carried 25 children. Meanwhile, in the Bukhara province, traffic police stopped two Damas vehicles transport a combined total of 36 children—20 in one and 16 in the other.
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