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Abstract
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While official sources accentuated the positive regarding the grim reality of traffic accidents in the country--highlighting the decrease in accidents between 2015 and 2020 and the 13% drop in people injured in road accidents from 2020 to 2021[3]--the bigger picture is more sobering.
First, both the number of accidents 5612 and total fatalities (350) increased in 2021, representing a jump of 1%-2% from the previous year.[3] More importantly, the period under study for 2021 was between January and September, as opposed to the full 12-month calendar year for 2020--meaning there were more accidents and deaths in 25% less time. The context in which these accidents occurred is also troubling: not only was the country closed to tourism during the time studied, but nearly all non-essential interprovincial travel was suspended and a country-wide curfew of 9 PM was in place. All this reveals that accidents, including fatal ones, increased in a shorter timeframe, during which traffic volume was drastically reduced.
Other factors contributing to the problem according to CNSV include unlicensed drivers--54% of accidents involved drivers with no license, representing over 16,000 drivers in total.[3,4] The majority of them were driving electric motorcycles, vehicles that prior to 2021 did not require license plates either, meaning a driver fleeing the scene of an accident would be almost impossible to locate. Obtaining and renewing drivers' licenses, plus vehicle inspections and registration, were all suspended due to COVID-19 throughout the period studied. Since motor vehicle services re-opened in mid-November, the expectation is that the trifecta of unlicensed drivers, technical defects and vehicles without plates will gradually improve. However, the backlog, combined with the infamously sluggish bureaucracy, means the impact will not be immediately felt.
There are other, more complicated and costly reasons behind traffic accidents as well, lack of infrastructure investment and improvements chief among them. Street lighting in Cuba is dangerously deficient, even on main city thoroughfares and four-lane highways, making night driving especially challenging. Roadway signage, though vastly improved over the past five years, is still lacking and sometimes confusing, which can lead to indecisive or conversely, abrupt maneuvers behind the wheel--both perilous...
Language: en |