An organization that works to prevent unintentional injury to children welcomed the government’s effort in Tagaytay City to prohibit children from riding motorcycles and encouraged other local government units to draw up similar road safety measures.
“Motorcycles are not a very safe vehicle. We discourage children from riding motorcycles and, if possible, they should be put in a more protective vehicle,” said Marte Perez, executive director of Safe Kids Philippines (SKP), an affiliate of the Safe Kids Worldwide.
Perez, in a phone interview on Thursday, said this in reference to an existing law in Tagaytay City that prohibits the carriage of children below 7 years of age on motorcycles, scooters or bicycles.
According to the Tagaytay city ordinance, riding these type of vehicles “poses a clear and imminent danger to the life and safety” of a potential young victim.
“Tagaytay is a child-friendly city. And due to the number of road accidents that involved motorcycles, especially at night, this (ordinance) is a preventive measure to protect the children,” said Tagaytay’s city information officer Lani Diesta.
The ordinance covers all city and national roads within Tagaytay and imposes a penalty from P200 to P1,000 and six months of imprisonment.
It has been in effect since November last year as approved by Mayor Abraham Tolentino.
In Manila, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority recently established motorcycle lanes to address the increasing number of motorcycles and related road accidents.
Tagaytay City is the only city with a clear mandate against children riding motorcycles, while the province of Cavite, to which Tagaytay belongs, issued in 2010 guidelines that prohibit children, 10 years old and below, from riding motorcycles, according to the SKP and local officials.
Chief Inspector Joel Jucutan, chief of the police Highway Patrol Group (HPG) in Cavite, said this could be the reason there were “fewer” motorcycle-related accidents since the middle of last year in Cavite.
“Children are prone to fatal injuries. Even if they wore helmets, their bodies are still very fragile,” Jucutan said.
Still, according to the HPG’s records in Calabarzon [Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon], the most recent fatal accident along this line was in December in Rizal province when two boys, aged 7-9, met an accident while riding a single bicycle. One of the boys died in the accident.
Perez said that while they support all efforts to protect children from motorcycle injuries, including a similar bill pending in Congress, their group actually recommends no age requirement on children riding the motorcycles.
To SKP, children would be safe provided the child reaches the motorcycle foot pegs, the child is big enough to hold his arms around the driver’s waist, and if helmet is worn during the ride.
“It’s not a matter of age but the child’s physical capability,” Perez said.
She too warned that the longer the drive is, the more the child would be prone to falling off the vehicle, due to tendencies of falling asleep during the ride, based on SKP’s recorded incidents.