Surely collaborators who work with us use it as transport and if not, then we are pedestrians anyway ...

Last year Mauricio García Villegas wrote after his father was killed by a motorcycle an article in which he said that today in Colombia motorcycles kill more people than the armed conflict.

García concluded by saying that "the worst thing is that, as the dead of this tragedy are in droves, they are scattered throughout the territory and are not the product of an armed actor or a natural catastrophe, but the lack of regulation so tragedy is not seen. "

And maybe where you can least see it is in Bogotá, but the tragedy is there, like blood running up our legs.

During the last 15 years the deterioration of the Transmilenio service (bogota´s public bus service) and the disastrous transition from traditional public transport to the SITP (bus service) have made people look for alternatives different of bus. Some have bought cars and others have gone for bike, but the vast majority have gone to the motorcycle.

Source: Secretary of Mobility - Presentation

And the reasons do not surprise. The one who travels on a motorcycle moves faster, does not pay regional borders fee, can go out the couple, consumes little gas, it is easy to get the driver license, has no cars time restriction to mobilize and pays little for his vehicle. These factors and more others explain the explosion in the number of motorcycles in Bogota but what is difficult to measure for these new motorcycle riders are the chances that their new vehicle will leave them injured for life or dead.

Secretary of Mobility Source - Right to petition

During the last nine years the deaths in accidents involving a motorcycle have multiplied by three times in Bogota, already exceeding the barrier of three hundred and it is presumable to continue the trend in purchase of motorcycles, keep going up What are we going to do? Or do we simply care less about killing people as a result of motorcycles than as a result of bullets?

Basically, you have to do two things. One popular and the other very unpopular.

The first is to improve the quality of public transport. Stop being a useless and crowded, and start being safe, have good frequencies and good coverage.

That is popular because it is the responsibility of the government and we believe that we do not have to pay for it to happen.

The second is very unpopular and is making the motorcycle less attractive. That means removing the gaps it has. For example, start charging regional borders tickets, make the price of your SOAT reflect the risk it represents, ensure that they cannot park on the street and if it is the case raise the tariffs.

It is also essential to supervise with rigor how the schools are delivering the licenses and that those who continue to use the motorcycle do so in a safe and respectful manner.

In Vietnam, a country where motorcycles have definitely won the battle for public transport, one person dies on a motorcycle approximately every hour and a half.

That is more than eleven thousand a year. Are we going to allow the same in Colombia? If we are determined to avoid it, someone is going to have to give us the popularity rating that implies locking it.

Something like what happened to Santos with the peace deal with Colombian guerrilla :FARC