More Motorcycles, More Problems

A crowd of motorcyclists roar along an avenue in central Bogotá.

El Tiempo: 'Motorcycles take more
and more passengers from buses.'

Bogotá is becoming inundated with motorcycles. For their riders, they provide an alternative to having to wait for buses or idle in traffic jams. But for cities they create problems including crime,  traffic chaos and a weakened mass transit system.

Perhaps surprisingly, motorcycles also pollute - a lot, particularly those motorcycles with small two-stroke engines which burn oil and often leave behind a stream of white smoke dense with particulate

A motorcycle belches out white smoke.

matter. Bogotá officials have repeatedly declared they would restrict the two-stroke motorcycles, but instead they are proliferating. (Today, even many 'bicycles' are equipped with dirty, noisy engines - altho they still behave like, and claim to be, bicycles.)

Motorcyclists are also linked to crime. I myself was once mugged by a group of young men on motorcycles. And official concern was so much that several months ago Bogotá banned male motorcyclists from carrying other males as passengers.

A motorcycle club rally in La Candelaria. Most Bogotá motorycles are smaller, newer and more practical.

But perhaps motorcycles' most worrying impact for urban liveability is the way that they drain

Motorcycles lined up in a Bogotá neighborhood
dedicated to repairing motorcycles and selling
morotcycle parts.

passengers from mass transit. If mass transit ridership drops far enough - and that's already happening in Bogotá - it will make mass transit economically inviable, reducing its availability and pushing even more people to cars and motorcycles and worsening Bogotá's terrible traffic.

Motorcycles are involved in a dosproportionate number of accidents and injuries.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Danger of Daily Life

The fallen Claro sign on the sidewalk.

I was pedaling into the Las Nieves neighborhood this afternoon when I heard a loud noise and people yelling. The sign above the Claro customer services office had broken loose and fallen onto the sidewalk. At least one man was injured and lay on the sidewalk awaiting an ambulance.

A junior policeman attends to a victim.

Sure, today was a bit windy. But bolting or screwing a metal sign securely to a building's side doesn't seem too difficult. Is this the fault of a lazy, corrupt or incompetent contractor, perhaps combined with a lazy, corrupt or incompetent building inspector? Or both?

Whatever the case, I hope that Claro - which belongs to Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest men - has to open its wallet to the poor guy the sign fell on.

The building before the fall.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Dying on Bogotá's Streets - Quickly or Slowly

Passers-by discuss the death of a two-year-old girl, who fell to her death thru the manhole, then uncovered, Saturday afternoon. The man on the left said that whoever stole the sewer lid was guilty of accesory to murder. 

While her mother entered a plastic jewelry shop and her grandmother became distracted, two-year-old Michel Dayana chased after pigeons Saturday afternoon along the Eje Ambiental in central Bogotá.

But, shortly before, somebody had stolen the cover from a manhole. Tiny Michel fell inside. And, despite the heroic efforts of a street vendor, police and a soldier who all crawled down into the noxious underground tunnel, where the sewage-saturated San Francisco River flows below the avenue, the girl drowned and her body was recovered several blocks away.

Michel's tragedy is only the latest and most dramatic accident caused by the innumerable holes which make Bogotá's streets and sidewalks into obstacle courses in which a twisted ankle or knee is the lightest penalty for unwary.

A plastic 'non recyclable' manhole cover.

This particular tragedy can't really be blamed on the city government. Reportedly, the metal manhole cover had been stolen only a day or two before, one of thousands which disappear from Bogotá's streets every year. The thieves take the lids to nearby scrap dealers and sell them for perhaps 40,000 pesos. The city has purchased 'Non-Recyclable' plastic lids, which seem to last longer, but are still sometimes stolen and trafficked to other cities.

Stealing sewer lids is a crime. But those who pry the lids

A lidless utility box on
a Bogotá sidewalk.

off of the streets, likely at 3 a.m., are probably drug addicts who won't be dissuaded by any punishments. Others are professional thieves with trucks who never ever seem to get caught. A more effective response would be to punish the scrap dealers who buy these and other illegaly-obtained objects. Recently, thieves even stole much of the structure from a pedestrian bridge to sell.

Catching the scrap dealers wouldn't be difficult, either. Police could just send an apparent drug addict to the dealers carrying a sewer lid to sell. Nobody has a right to be offering a sewer lid. The scrap dealer who buys the lid would get fined and his business shut for a month.

While I discussed the tragedy with some some passers-by, a TransMilenio bus drove past, blasting us with toxic diesel smoke. Two young girls covered their faces and ran off. Michel's tragic death got a lot of attention, as it deserved. But what about the thousands of slow deaths caused every year by Bogotá's uncontrolled air pollution?

A TransMilenio bus drove up the avenue, spewing toxic smoke over us. 

The two girls fled the fumes. 

So did these, covering their mouths. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

An Explosive Encounter

The CTI is the Cuerpo Tecnico de Investigacion

I took these dramatic photos of this unscheduled encounter a few weeks ago in La Merced, the swanky Londonesque neighborhood (built by the British Petroleum Co. in the 1930s) just south of the National Park.

Fortunately, the CTI studies explosives, but doesn't carry them.

I have suspicions, but no way to know whether alcohol or just plain stupidity, speeding and negligence caused this. Nor whether anybody was injured, altho the impact looks quite violent.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

I didn't mean to do it - but you're dead anyway!

Alcohol or just plain old recklessness? A car-motorcycle crash near Tadeo University. 

Here's a useful piece of criminal advice: if you want to commit murder, just get drunk and get behind the wheel before you do it. Colombia's parliament again last week voted down a bill to impose jail terms for drunk driving. And, injuring or killing someone while driving drunk is considered 'negligence' or 'accidental,' and punishable only by house arrest.

I suppose that nowhere in that chain of acts of getting drunk, getting behind the wheel and then injuring or killing someone is there any intentionality.

"I'm sorry, but it was all an honest mistake which could have happened to anybody."

Anybody who is drunk and irresponsible, that is.

Here's a news article about a drunk driver who killed a woman and injered her friend, who said the pair were standing on the sidewalk, and then fled the scene. The incident only made the news because the driver was sentenced to prison. He claimed that the woman had thrown herself in front of his vehicle.

Sure, it's usually the pedestrians' fault for getting themselves killed by cars.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours