Never before has the harsh phrase "Innovate or die" gained so much traction, as the lack of innovation in road safety for motorcyclists is costing hundreds of daily deaths in Latin America.
Much is said about the problem of motorcycle accidents, which has been constantly increasing over the last 15 years to the point of being considered a public health problem, but little or almost nothing is said about real solutions for it. This is essentially because the very architects of the bad public policies that led us through a process of irresponsible motorization now pretend to act as saviors of road safety, thinking and acting in the same way they did when they created the problem.
The region's road safety agencies have utterly failed; they have become bureaucratic entities that waste millions of resources on useless campaigns that have yielded no positive results in reducing mortality. Even worse are the defenders of the status quo, which continues to exacerbate the technological obsolescence existing between motorization in European countries and that in Latin America.
A problem created by the free market must be solved with the free market regulatory tools that have proven successful in Europe. Below, we list the four actions that everyone knows should be taken but that no Latin American leader has taken, either due to corruption or incompetence:
1.- Prohibit the sale of motorcycles not homologated with the EURO5+ standard: 98% of motorcycles circulating in Latin America are prohibited from sale in Europe due to their technological obsolescence. These are basically motorcycles with obsolete braking systems that cause them not to brake effectively, which is why the accident rate is much higher than in developed countries. Motorcycles equipped with ABS brakes have been shown to reduce braking distances by more than 35%; however, the roads in our countries are flooded with motorcyclists who still use obsolete and ineffective drum brakes. We are more than 25 years behind in motorcycle technology compared to the motorcycles sold in Europe, all thanks to traffic regulators who refuse to adopt European standards.
2.- Regulate the sale of Certified Personal Protective Equipment for Motorcyclists: MotoGP or Rally Dakar motorcyclists emerge unharmed from accidents at over 250 km/h thanks to protective technologies (airbags and certified helmets). However, 98% of the protective clothing and equipment for motorcyclists sold in Latin America are counterfeits. The difference between surviving or dying in a motorcycle accident is made by certified protective elements that protect vital organs (helmets certified with the ECE-22.06 standard to protect the head and airbags certified with the EN-1621-4 standard to protect the neck, chest, and abdomen). The criminal codes of our countries penalize the imitation or counterfeiting of prophylactic material, but no Latin American country evaluates the conformity of protective equipment. Meanwhile, Latin American motorcyclists are daily defrauded with false protective elements. Even the clothing and protective elements of police traffic motorcyclists in all Latin American countries are counterfeits without any certification, so states are complicit in the crime of counterfeiting protective elements, and all this happens with the approval of Road Safety Agencies that refuse to adopt European standards for the homologation and certification of protective equipment. On the contrary, they have created technical helmet standards that lack conformity assessment processes, such as the Colombian technical helmet standard that promotes the sale of DOT helmets, which is widely known to consist of simply sticking a sticker on any product without any suitability or quality evaluation.
3.- Regulate the licensing examination and abolish Automotive Training Centers: The issuance of motorcycle driving licenses is a corrupt procedure in the hands of political mafias associated with Road Safety Agencies. The global trend is not to regulate driver training, meaning that the quality and prices of driving courses should be set by the free market. On the contrary, the license issuance examination must be strictly controlled to evaluate knowledge, skills, and abilities with a single objective criterion based on safety. In Spain, for example, motorcyclists are required to wear all certified equipment (including airbags) during the driving test. The process of issuing driving licenses in Latin America is tainted by corruption and ineptitude; one can count on the fingers of one hand the motorcycle driving schools where instructors and students use certified protective equipment and instructors have international suitability certifications.
4.- Enforce existing regulations for motorcycle work: Motorcycle accidents are the leading cause of death at work and absenteeism in several countries in the region, such as Colombia, Uruguay, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil, among others. In Latin America, the motorcycle is more of a social economy vehicle than a means of transport. For example, in Colombia, with 24 million economically active people and more than 14 million motorcycles in circulation, we find that 40% of motorcycle users use the vehicle as a work tool, while another 50% use it to travel from home to work and vice versa, which is an activity carried out because of and in connection with an employment contract. This demonstrates that 90% of motorcycle commutes are work-related. In Uruguay, with 3.5 million inhabitants, there are more than one million motorcycles in circulation, and the figures are linked to work activity. All countries in the region are signatories to ILO Convention 155 on occupational safety and health, which specifically states:
Article 16. Employers shall provide appropriate protective clothing and equipment to prevent the risks of accidents or adverse health effects.
However, despite all countries having strict labor regulations on personal protective equipment according to the risk of the activity performed, and in most countries there are Occupational Risk Insurers, no Latin American country enforces the regulations for motorcycle workers. Even worse, they rely on corrupt licensing systems to support the suitability of motorcycle workers. The negligence of the Latin American insurance sector related to labor regulations, in complicity with Road Safety Agencies, means that motorcycle workers in the region are treated as second-class citizens or mercenaries in a job that condemns them to death.
Our regional problem of motorcycle accidents does have a solution, but unfortunately, the Road Safety Agencies, which are the entities in charge of the matter, have proven to be a failure either due to incompetence or corruption. To cover up this failure and do nothing, they hide behind the deceptive phrase that "speed kills". While you read this article, due to the Earth's rotation, we are moving at 1,670 km/h and due to its translation, we are moving at 107,280 km/h, and we are still alive. However, the situation would be very different if the planet stopped suddenly. Speed is not a direct cause of death; it is a risk factor that influences the frequency of accidents and the energy involved in them. The main cause of death for motorcyclists (99%) is severe trauma to a vital organ caused by the force of impacts sustained in accidents.
We cannot continue to build awareness on the basis of lies and ignorance.
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