In a country like ours, with more than two million vehicles registered to travel on our roads and no reliable means of public transportation, which forces the vast majority of citizens to rely on private cars, ensuring road safety is, and should remain, one of the highest priorities of any government.
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Lee este artículo en español.
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The sheer number of vehicles, plus irresponsible driving, too often turn our roads into death traps. Last year, 288 people died in traffic accidents. In 2023, there were 307. As of this week, 2025 deaths are at 101.
Road safety is, as far as can be seen, a matter of the highest importance. It is in this context, then, that the appointment of a committee by Governor Jenniffer González to “analyze and regulate” the presence of off-road vehicles on Puerto Rico’s highways must be understood.
The committee is based on a campaign promise made by the governor, who, in May 2024, during a political activity in Bayamón, stated: “I am going to put a license plate on the ‘banshee’, on the motorcycles, on the Can-Am, on everything that has an engine so that they can travel on the road”.
Promise aside, we believe that Puerto Rico would be doing itself a disservice by legalizing the use on the roads of vehicles that, according to their own manufacturers, are not designed for that purpose, nor do they offer the safety guarantees of regular vehicles. Furthermore, the country knows, because it sees it, the irresponsible, reckless, dangerous, and even abusive use that is too often given to these vehicles on our highways.
From the expressions of some members of the committee, it appears that the intention of the effort is to seek some kind of accommodation or relaxation for the use of off-road vehicles on the highways. We believe that would be a serious mistake. It seems to us that the only acceptable course of action for the committee should be to issue a clear, forceful and firm message that no more disorder or lawlessness will be accepted on our streets, as occurred on May 23, when close to 200 motorcyclists surrounded and assaulted two police officers in Barrio Obrero.
Such incidents are not unusual. Social networks abound with videos of motorcyclists putting their own safety and that of other citizens at risk, occasionally performing their reckless stunts in front of overwhelmed police officers with no resources to intervene.
Fatalities are not unusual consequences of these practices either. Although motorcycles make up less than 10% of the total number of registered vehicles in Puerto Rico, 23.8% of those killed on the roads are motorcyclists, according to statistics from the Traffic Safety Commission. Off-road vehicle accidents have a 20% fatality rate and in more than half of the cases lead to traumatic brain injuries, according to the Trauma Hospital Administration of the Medical Center, where almost all the victims of these accidents end up.
The Automobile Accident Compensation Administration (ACAA) has said that most motor vehicle accident victims are unlicensed, so it cannot cover the millions of dollars in hospitalization costs, which are then paid for out of the treasury.
It can be seen, then, that there are issues to be addressed in the matter of off-road vehicles and motorcycles on the roads, but not along the lines of relaxing and allowing. On the contrary, experience shows that what is needed is greater firmness in dealing with irresponsibility, recklessness, disorder and chaos on the roads. No less is expected from a government of law and order, nor, of course, from the committee that has this serious matter under its consideration.
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This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.
