- 2 weeks ago
Every hour, four people die on Brazil's streets—more than from guns or natural disasters. A look at how they became some of the deadliest in the world. And: A teenager in Nigeria uses roller skates to commute to school.
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00:00In Brazil, around 120 people die every day in traffic.
00:04Imagine a plane crash every day, killing over 100 people.
00:08By day three, the aviation sector would be paralyzed.
00:26Why do so many Brazilians die in traffic accidents?
00:30Does the country have the world's most dangerous roads?
00:34Is Brazil out of step with the rest of the world?
00:41A culture of leniency towards traffic violations.
00:54Brazil, home to 123 million vehicles,
00:59it's the fourth deadliest country in the world when it comes to traffic fatalities.
01:03In absolute numbers, Brazil lands right behind India, China and the European Union.
01:12To put that into perspective, four people die every hour in accidents here.
01:18While the UN has called traffic accidents in Latin America a silent pandemic,
01:22the situation on the streets of Brazil has only gotten worse since 2019.
01:30We've convinced ourselves that dying or being injured in traffic is a natural occurrence.
01:45In Brazil, around 120 people die every day in traffic.
01:50Imagine a plane crash every day, killing over 100 people.
01:54By day three, the aviation sector would be paralyzed.
01:59In the last six years, Brazilian roads have become less safe.
02:03And that's even with the COVID-19 pandemic, when a lot of people stayed home
02:08and with the National Traffic Safety Plan in place.
02:11The cost to the public health system for hospitalizations from road accidents has also gone up.
02:18Most of these accidents happen on city streets.
02:21And the number of deaths just keeps on rising, slowly, steadily and seemingly inevitably.
02:34Our legislation is considered to be among the best in the world,
02:37with a super well-structured traffic code that's over 25 years old.
02:48But we have deficiencies in the application of this legislation.
02:53People aren't aware of the risks they're taking.
02:55And on the other hand, they don't feel the effect of enforcement.
03:00And that can lead to anarchy and chaos on the streets,
03:04due to some people driving however they want.
03:11Is Brazil out of step with the rest of the world?
03:14No.
03:15Brazil is similar to countries that are in similar socioeconomic situations.
03:28But Brazil also has some very particular difficulties.
03:33We have a federal democracy with a high degree of municipal autonomy.
03:40In fact, it's so high that I believe the main players in road safety in Brazil are the local authorities.
03:48Without a doubt.
03:59A not untypical scene in Sao Paulo.
04:02Heavy rain, heavy traffic, and drivers trying to find a gap to get home as fast as they can.
04:10A motorcyclist taking a shortcut on the sidewalk.
04:14And a driver blocking the zebra crossing after stopping too late at a red traffic light.
04:20Sao Paulo is a sprawling metropolis of 11 million people.
04:24Plus 10 million vehicles, almost one for every resident.
04:29Which makes getting from A to B a daily challenge.
04:37In 2024, more than a thousand people died in traffic here.
04:42The highest number in a decade.
04:44What explains the increase in accidents?
04:51I think people not watching out more for pedestrians might be one factor.
05:07I wouldn't say that it's any single factor.
05:10But I also think that it's due to the increase in the number of motorbikes.
05:15Public transport isn't cheap and the quality isn't good.
05:19That's just inviting people to buy a cheap motorbike.
05:29Let me take an example here from my city, San Jose dos Campos.
05:34Today, most hospital beds are occupied by motorcyclists who've been in traffic accidents.
05:38Why is that?
05:40When these people gained access to this individual means of transport, specifically motorcycles,
05:46they were brought into the traffic context without adequate preparation.
05:52In Sao Paulo, the number of motorcycles on the road increased from 830,000 to almost 1.3 million between
05:592014 and 2024.
06:01The two-wheelers even now have a dedicated lane.
06:05And that's not all.
06:09People who walk around the city are also at risk when the urban planners get the street layout wrong.
06:16Architect Rosamere Leite shows us a corner in Sao Paulo where the problem is very obvious.
06:24Take this avenue, for example. There's a steady stream of traffic. It's a relatively wide road, which makes it more
06:32unsafe.
06:33And the waiting time for pedestrians at the traffic lights is really long.
06:42There's a subway station nearby and a bus lane on one side.
06:46You really have to give priority to pedestrians because there's a constant flow of people.
06:53But in many places across Brazil, it's cars that enjoy priority.
06:58And at the same time, the megacities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are faced with serious congestion on
07:04a daily basis.
07:09Extreme fatal accidents are reported throughout the country.
07:14Yet nothing changes.
07:23Sergio Avallera previously served as the Secretary of Mobility and Transportation for the city of Sao Paulo.
07:30He believes that for a traffic death to occur, various things have to go wrong.
07:38It's not a coincidence. A fatality is the result of public policy mistakes or omissions.
07:46Speed, combined with alcohol consumption, is one of the leading causes of accidents.
07:52One of the victims of this deadly combination was Marina Akoche.
07:56She was hit and killed in Sao Paulo in 2020 while riding her bicycle.
08:01Her death triggered a major debate about drunk driving.
08:05It became a political issue and Marina herself became a posthumous symbol of misguided traffic policy.
08:12Her husband Felipe Borato is the co-founder of the Pedal Like Marina campaign calling for better road safety.
08:21Marina introduced me to both Sao Paulo and cycling.
08:25And I'm proud to say that even today, when I'm in some places that I don't walk around that much,
08:30her voice comes to me saying, oh, there's such and such a street that you can go up.
08:46Felipe believes Sao Paulo has become even more dangerous since Marina Akoche's death.
08:55The driver who killed her was able to live as a free man for four years before being convicted.
09:01So that fact also takes away some of my confidence of being on the streets.
09:07I've had the impression that anyone can do what they want, even kill me.
09:15Brazil has a nationwide plan for reducing deaths and injuries on the roads.
09:21There's also a range of advertising campaigns on road safety, plus the dry law, which requires drivers and riders in
09:29Brazil to have a blood alcohol level of zero.
09:34But enforcement is lax, says Cauagenini from an association that advocates for the rights of pedestrians in Sao Paulo.
09:43It was nice on paper, but in practice not applied, so no, it hasn't had any real results.
09:48What road safety policy also has to include is reducing speeds, which is something that has been abandoned in the
09:54city.
10:02There are many ways in which you can make drivers more careful in their movement without directly reducing speed.
10:08For example, enforcement is fundamental to any road safety policy.
10:13And perhaps because it's bad for those who are trying to get elected, enforcement has been neglected.
10:20Imposing fines isn't popular.
10:25In a comment sent to DW, Sao Paulo City Hall said that it has increased the number of exclusive motorbike
10:32lanes,
10:33and that where they exist, fatalities almost halved between 2023 and 2024.
10:39It also referred to the implementation of traffic calming areas, and the largest cycling network in the country.
10:45The city also says it aligns its policies with the nationwide plan, and that it has applied measures such as
10:52raised crossings to slow vehicles down.
11:02But nationally, the biggest problem is poor political decisions, some made by former President Jair Bolsonaro.
11:09The first blow to this set of safety rules came in 2019 during his administration.
11:15He banned new speed cameras on federal highways, prohibited the use of hidden radar cameras,
11:21and doubled the minimum number of points needed for drivers to lose their licenses.
11:27From Saturday, there is no more mobile radar cameras on the other side of the country.
11:32From Saturday, there is no more mobile radar cameras on the other side of the country.
11:32Why?
11:34Unfortunately, the use of this equipment has served, in large part, as a gun.
11:40And no more mobile radar cameras on the other side of the country.
11:44Bolsonaro also stopped the collection of the mandatory insurance that helped traffic accident victims cover medical expenses.
11:55In the past administration, we had a president who talked about traffic, except he spoke against traffic safety.
12:07We had setbacks at the institutional level with the change in the traffic code.
12:16Congress did improve some points there, but ultimately it was offenders who ended up benefiting.
12:28But some of these measures are still in force under the current government of President
12:32Lula da Silva.
12:34Congress did not reverse all the relaxed traffic code rules and the ending of the mandatory
12:39insurance.
12:50But if the figures show there is a traffic death epidemic rivaling that of gun-related deaths,
12:56why doesn't the country address the problem?
13:10Imagine hearing that in your city of 200,000 people, 170 people are killed in accidents
13:16each year.
13:17And it's far more in bigger cities.
13:19Why is that?
13:20Nobody ever stops to think.
13:22That's why no one holds the city leaders to account.
13:25And we've just had a municipal election in which this issue didn't come up.
13:31There's a culture of leniency towards traffic violations.
13:34Here, when you deploy speed cameras, people say you're creating a fines industry.
13:39But like any industry, it needs raw materials.
13:43The fines industry doesn't exist because of speed cameras.
13:47It's because of traffic violations.
13:53That culture of leniency and perceived impunity continues as road rage and reckless behavior
14:00continue to rule, largely unchecked.
14:04Experts say the active involvement of civil society would help.
14:10The world needs peace, because no one deserves to live in a war zone.
14:18We need to be able to live in peace, without fear, feeling that life is respected.
14:27Participants public are relatively recent and pretty fragile.
14:31And we need to fight for them to continue to exist.
14:34We need to ensure these bodies are genuinely occupied by civil society to enable qualified discussion.
14:47Elsewhere in the world, cities like Bologna in Italy have invested in policies promoting slower,
14:53safer traffic, and seen huge results.
14:56Further examples include Oslo and Norway, or Brussels.
15:03Whoever you are, one day you can leave home feeling nervous or tired.
15:08So if you combine everyone makes mistakes with the fragility of the human body,
15:13you're obliged to design streets in a way that prevents people from exceeding safe speed limits.
15:21And also important are awareness raising and education campaigns.
15:32But they're not the only factor in solving the problem.
15:36And we don't have to go far to find examples.
15:39Here in Brazil, the city of Fortaleza is managing to make a difference.
15:48We've had a range of intervention measures that have been widely reported throughout Brazil.
15:53Areas that have been redesigned for pedestrians,
15:56neighborhoods where traffic was chaotic and there was no proper signage,
16:00all in order to reclaim space for residents.
16:14Anyone who sees vehicles moving slowly along the streets of Fortaleza might think this avenue has always been like this.
16:21But for the past decade, the state capital of Chiara has been bucking national trends with more placid traffic.
16:36The decline only reversed last year, after almost a decade of reduction.
16:41What's the secret?
16:46It's a solution that doesn't start from a single factor.
16:50There's no point in just trying to educate drivers or just trying to improve roads.
16:57So it's a really multidisciplinary effort that happened in Fortaleza.
17:02City managers generally embraced road safety as a regional state issue, not a government program.
17:10Safer roads don't exempt Fortaleza from facing the challenges of heavy traffic and congestion, especially during rush hour.
17:18But what worked here was simply reversing the way of thinking and prioritizing safety over vehicle speed.
17:34At first the municipal traffic authority had a very mobility focused perspective.
17:41So the entire technical and operational team had this mindset of above all ensuring a smooth flow for cars.
17:59And when the traffic authority began to specifically understand this issue of road safety, there was a very radical shift
18:08in focus.
18:10Because mobility only makes sense if it's safe.
18:15We visited Fortaleza's mobility control center, where operations focus on reducing accident risks.
18:22A key aspect here was to intensify enforcement of laws regulating alcohol consumption and speeding.
18:36One of the main factors is speeding, which is a widely accepted point around the world.
18:42Fortaleza now has a strong speed adjustment policy.
18:46The city's roads are gradually changing to 50 km per hour zones.
18:50And there are traffic calming areas with even lower speed limits.
18:58Speed cameras may not be popular with drivers, but here they help to halve the number of deaths over the
19:05past decade.
19:06Among other measures to be adopted, streets that force drivers to slow down, raised sections of road, and separate lanes
19:15for cars and bicycles on busier roads.
19:18Sometimes even painting the street differently can help.
19:23These advances are part of Vision Zero, a global initiative that started in Sweden back in 1997.
19:35The concept is now part of Brazil's national plan and the strategies of cities like Fortaleza and Sao Paulo.
19:41The goal is to put lives first because no road death is acceptable.
19:45The transit is not only about cars and cars, it is about people.
19:50And that's why we need to talk about lives.
19:52We know that by the best prepared that people are, everyone can make mistakes.
19:57But this should not result in the death of anyone.
20:00Neither of anyone, nor of a parent, nor of an unknown.
20:02But for this to happen, everyone has to do their own part, right?
20:07Making Vision Zero really work here in Brazil requires a solid plan that includes prioritizing safety,
20:13better street design, a strong focus on speed management, and all of this always seen through the lens of fairness.
20:25Tartical urbanism is a relatively recent strategy for altering urban space at low cost, and with interventions that can be
20:33temporary.
20:42The main elements are simply markings on the sidewalk or on the road itself, supported by landscaping elements like planters
20:53and ballards.
21:07If you design streets for people to walk calmly and slowly, to protect pedestrians and cyclists, nobody will die in
21:16traffic.
21:17So with good communication and effective action, we can achieve fabulous results without it becoming a political issue for anyone.
21:25Political will is a recurring demand when people talk about solutions for Brazil's 5,000-plus cities.
21:32For Vision Zero to truly take root, it needs to be part of local government plans.
21:37And even more importantly, it has to feature in the public budget.
21:49None of these issues come with silver bullets.
21:54There seem to be socio-economic and urban transport infrastructure factors behind all of this.
22:02There's a level of change, including cultural change, that cities need to undergo.
22:09Otherwise, we'll continue to face this increase, which, I repeat, is not only happening in Brazil.
22:20Brazil can have safer traffic, even with structural problems.
22:25Brazil can have a safer place.
22:26Small urban interventions can make a difference here and there, provided they're combined with various factors.
22:33Like a good public transport system, urban redesigning to calm traffic, improving enforcement, and encouraging community participation to turn public
22:45policy into action.
22:49Sao Paulo is the city where Marina Arcoche campaigned for fairer road conditions.
22:58A fight that her husband is determined to continue.
23:06A city that accommodates everyone's wishes.
23:11A city that isn't just home to work and work to home.
23:15A city where a mother can take her children to school or daycare.
23:20And with a transit system where she doesn't have to walk long distances or rely on ride-hailing apps.
23:28A city where she can ride her bike in peace.
23:35So how can Brazil's roads become safer?
23:39Fortaleza is leading the way.
23:41If the political will is there, improvement is always possible, as is a reduction in traffic-related fatalities.
23:50As for awareness and education, they only work if the message gets through and is backed up by enforcement.
23:59As long as citizens and policy makers follow these steps, Brazil does have the potential to reverse the current trend
24:06and become an inspiration and a global model for road safety.
24:19Abdullahi Ahmad has found an innovative way to save money on his daily commute to school.
24:27The 16-year-old boy from Kanu, Nigeria, has to travel eight kilometers each way, and his solution for how
24:34to get there is quite novel.
24:37He goes on rollerblades.
24:48Before, the transport cost for my schooling ranged between 200 to 300 naira, about 15 euro cents.
24:57And suddenly things changed.
24:59It now costs 500 to 600 naira, and my parents could no longer afford it.
25:06That's why I decided to utilize my skating skills as a practical solution.
25:12And I realized it's even easier because it takes time for me to find a commercial bike.
25:18And that makes me late for school.
25:25Currently, no regulations apply specifically to skaters in Nigeria.
25:30And experts warn skating alongside vehicles on the road can be dangerous.
25:38That makes the challenge even greater for Abdullahi.
25:42But that doesn't stop him from pursuing his dream of becoming a doctor.
25:55And more automotive tales next time on REV.
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