Rural Transport Safety in Colombia - Utopia or an invisible reality?
by Néstor Sáenz Saavedra

In order to put the reality of the problem into context, one should think of the geographical location where the activities connected with “rural transport” in Latin America take place. When one consults the statistics on rural accidents, our institutions refer to those which occur on primary and secondary roads in the national road network, where the proportion of accidents registered is around 10% in relation to the whole country. In other words, “the problem is an urban one”. Because of this, organisations give priority to the study, analysis and proposals for dealing with the problem in urban areas and only afterwards turn their attention to the problem on the inter-municipal road network. Although these actions have demonstrated their ineffectiveness, at least they are somewhat visible, owing principally to the fact that they are recorded by public institutions and some private ones . But what happens on the truly rural roads? There is no recorded information. Furthermore, nobody is interested in collecting information: it’s a “little” problem. The distances are huge, nobody knows the victims, etc. If there is no information, there is no action and the victims remain invisible.

However, it seems that the situation presents other complexities. The problem of safety in rural transport has different connotations from the characteristics prevalent in urban areas and the inter-municipal road network. The vehicles in use are different, adapted more to carrying goods than passengers (mixed), the roads, in their organization and design, are more oriented to small and slow vehicle traffic than to mobility, the activities connected with rural transport relate to local movement and its inter relation with the local population; but above all, the rural population is “different". It has other priorities, its activities are carried out with less intensity, but it becomes more vulnerable to suffering accidents in almost unpredictable situations given that its perception of risk is low, its level of vigilance is minimum.

The above seems to point to an initial field for action, an introduction to the design of programmes which could identify the problem and manage vulnerability. If it is complicated to deal with the threat represented by roads in bad condition, by dangerous designs, with old, run-down vehicles, and with a variety of terrains and gradients, let’s start with the people, to whom we must “teach” protection, prevention and perception skills against the risk of having an accident whilst on the move. But first, let’s “learn” from them; let’s find out in detail the dynamic of their lives, perhaps we might put ourselves in their shoes for a bit. Maybe this would be the quickest way of managing to put together the “information system” which would let us find the key to help them. Simultaneously we might identify the sort of factors which represent “threatening” conditions for their safety while travelling. Let’s use simpler but objective means, more open but serious and systematic attitudes, but above all, let’s count on them.

What results could we achieve? What changes might we hope for at the end of our “investigation”? As a first measure, changes towards safer behaviour in specific populations: school students, workers, drivers, etc. until we achieve a safer culture which is based on identifying the risks taken while travelling, so that this leads to changes in dangerous behaviour, which is sometimes thoughtless. In the second instance, we could hope that the same rural population might come up with ideas that would allow for the creation of strategies to decrease threatening factors: taking care of danger spots with low cost measures, introducing comprehensible and legible signs, and some better practices in vehicle and road maintenance, etc. Above all to get the issue of road safety in rural transport to be an issue of interest for the whole rural population, for visitors, for the entities and institutions which relate with them, in other words to drag it out of its invisibility. Which is another Utopia? Perhaps. But as with all Utopias, it’s worth trying for!

Footnote:

This opinion piece was contributed by Néstor Sáenz Saavedra, Associate Professor, Engineering Faculty, National University of Colombia.
Contact: nsaenzs[at]unal.edu.co

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