At 8:15 a.m. this Thursday, the 100th death of the year occurred on the streets of Medellín. It happened on Guayabal Avenue, to the west of the city. According to the authorities’ report, the deceased was a 26-year-old man who was traveling on a motorcycle. Two foreigners, a Venezuelan and a Swiss, were implicated in the case.
The accident was a collision between two motorcycles. The 26-year-old man died instantly. One of the foreign citizens was injured and was taken to a care center. The accident caused congestion on the road that lasted several hours.
The number of deaths in traffic accidents rose with respect to the previous year. According to the Mayor’s Office of Medellín, as of May 2021, 77 deaths of this type had been registered. Despite the fact that the city has created strategies to reduce traffic incidents, these continue to occur, for the most part, due to irresponsibility when driving.
The most affected continue to be those who ride motorcycles. This highway agent represented the 59% of the deaths of the previous year, with 160 cases, according to data from the National Road Safety Agency. Pedestrians, for their part, accounted for 24% with 65 deaths.
During the government of suspended mayor Daniel Quintero, the Vision Zero plan has been implemented, with which it seeks to reduce deaths on the city’s roads to zero. Within the program, in addition to pedagogy, strategies have been implemented such as speed reduction on important roads such as Autopista Norte and Avenida 80.