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Three out of every four licenses issued in the country are given to men. 60 percent of vehicles in Colombia are in just 11 cities, and 50 percent have more than 10 years of operation, since their models are prior to 2011.
In the last decade, for every car that entered circulation, two motorcycles entered. And the rate of years of life lost due to premature deaths in traffic accidents is 1.3 years for every 1,000 women, while for men it is 6.8.
These figures are part of the National Road Accident Yearbook, known as EL TIEMPO, prepared by the National Road Safety Agency (ANSV) and the Ministry of Health, a 230-page report that evaluated data from 2019 back to analyze the phenomena that more are influencing traffic accidents in the country.
(It may interest you: Keys for preventing accidents on the roads)
The research is the first of its kind to be published, and it crosses data sources from 7 official bodies to expose statistical information in order to create better strategies to build a road safety policy that allows to face the accident rate, on the basis that most of these events could be prevented.
To understand the magnitude of what is happening in Colombia, the study states that in 2019 there were 175,605 road accidents in the country, of which 44 percent brought consequences beyond material damage, as they left 743,977 injured and 40,564 injured. severity, that is, people who had to be hospitalized for more than one day, mainly in Bogotá, Antioquia and Valle del Cauca.
(For context, we recommend you read: For road accidents, the State faces lawsuits for $ 2 billion)
Of those injured, 88 percent were in the most productive ages of life, that is, between 15 and 59 years of age.
And 80 percent of these accidents (140,760) corresponded to vehicle crashes, while 8.7 percent to accidents (15,338), which in 99 percent caused injuries or deaths.
The dangers faced on the roads are different for each type of vehicle. In the case of motorcycles, for example, what they collide with the most (771 cases) are fixed objects, followed by cargo transports or mules (656).
Instead, cyclists collide with the most is mules (111) and motorcycles (89); while light vehicles –Cars and vans– mostly collide with fixed objects (128), cargo transport (74), and other cars (65).
In all accidents in 2019, 6,495 people died: 54 percent of them (3,532) were motorcyclists and 25 percent were pedestrians (1,614). It is striking that the number of dead car users (559) was almost similar to that of bicycle users (413).
Road safety report
That high total number of deaths will surely have a decrease last year, when all the data for 2020 that has just ended are known, due to the mobility and isolation restrictions that have occurred due to the coronavirus pandemic.
From January to November 11, 2020 – which is the last available cutoff that the National Road Safety Agency has – 4,741 fatalities had been registered in accidents, compared to 5,936 in the same period of the previous year. This means that by last November there were 20.13 percent fewer deaths in accidents on the tracks.
(Also read: 9% of buses and 15% of mules are over 50 years old)
Most of the lives that had been saved up to November 2020 were those of pedestrians, as there were 33.71 percent fewer pedestrians killed in these incidents. Car users followed, with a reduction of 24.19 percent; and motorcycle users, with 18.72 percent. The only statistic that had not improved was that of deceased cyclists, because while in the period analyzed in 2019 there were 381, in 2020 there were 389.
A discouraging balance
Although last year’s figures – which will have to be consolidated with the total records for November and December – could give hope on the subject, when looking at the general panorama, in normal – non-pandemic – conditions, the road accident rate has not improved despite of the campaigns and efforts of the authorities.
The fatality rate has not been able to decrease (not counting 2020), since in 2005 it was 13.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, and in 2018 it was 14.7. Nor have they managed to lower the number of accidents, since between 2007 and 2018 an average of 220,000 accidents per year was maintained, of which 50 percent were serious because they involved injuries or deaths.
The report also states that Deaths from road accidents have remained in the 7th and 8th positions of the main causes of death in Colombia in the last 14 years. To get an idea, in 2018, nationally, it was more likely to die in a land transport accident than from a disease of the digestive system or a malignant tumor of the digestive organs.
And the impact of accidents on the years of life lost is of chilling magnitude. According to the study, between 2005 and 2018, 3 million years of life were lost due to these premature deaths due to 90,720 deaths in that same period.
Most of the dead (80 percent) are men, many of them young, who died when they were between 20 and 24 years old from crashes and collisions.
This difference in deaths according to sex can be explained by the few licenses that are issued to women, since 76 percent are issued to men and only 24 percent to women.
On the other hand, 70 percent of those killed in accidents die the same day of the accident. It is also evident that men and women motorcycle users, between 20 and 25 years of age, are the ones who die the most among all age ranges and types of user.
The report also records the most dangerous hours: according to the data analyzed, serious accidents occur mainly between 4 and 8 at night, and between 9 and 2 in the morning, when traffic flow decreases and speed increases.
(We suggest you read: For bad signs that influenced the accident, they condemn the State)
With the exception of January, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays are those that tend to have the highest mortality in claims. In addition, the highest mortality peaks are in the times of school break, such as the Easter holidays, the June holidays, the October school break and the end of the year holidays and Christmas season, with December being the month with the most deaths on the tracks for 2019.
The regions
Road claims have a profile that is mostly urban. Thus, 70 percent of accidents occur in capital cities, and 43 percent of deaths are concentrated in 11 cities that have more than half the Colombian population: Barranquilla, Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Cali, Cartagena, Cúcuta, Medellín, Pereira, Villavicencio, Santa Marta and Ibagué.
Of those municipalities, the record shows that between 2011 and 2018 Medellín and Villavicencio were the cities that most managed to reduce deaths on the roadsOn the other hand, in the same period, Cartagena and Barranquilla had increases of 55 percent and 80 percent in deaths, respectively.
But if the size of the population is taken into account, in the last five years the highest mortality rates in road accidents have been had by cities such as Armenia (21.6), Cali (21.1), Rionegro (17.9 ), Pasto (17.6) and Santa Marta (17).
And in the departments those with the highest rates per 100,000 inhabitants are Arauca (31.7), Casanare (27.1), San Andrés y Providencia (25.2), Huila (22.7), Meta (21, 8), Putumayo (21.4) and Valle del Cauca (20.2).
(It might be of your interest to read: Being criminally acquitted of an accident does not exempt you from repair)
In departments such as Antioquia, Atlántico, Bogotá, Bolívar, Caldas, Caquetá, Cauca, or Córdoba, in 2018 road accidents were the second cause of death, after homicides. The cases of Boyacá, Cesar, Huila, Santander, Tolima and Casanare stand out, where for that same year land transport accidents were the main cause of death above any illness and violent event.
JUSTICE
