[sustran] motorcycles in Brasil - Proliferation of Motorcycles and Health Risks

[K. Tsourlakis]

Inter Press Service, 26 April 2006 - The continued expansion of Brazil's motorcycle industry over the past 13 years has polluted the air of the major cities and increased the number of traffic accidents, which kill 30,000 Brazilians a year and send more than 100,000 to hospitals.

Motorcycles account for 19 percent of the economic costs of these tragic accidents, twice that of cars, according to the government's Institute of Applied Economic Research.

Since the 1990s, motorcycles have multiplied so quickly in Sao Paulo, Brazil's industrial metropolis, that they have also become a serious environmental problem. There were 453,000 registered in that city in January 2000, jumping to 748,000 by December 2005, Homero Carvalho, of Sao Paulo state's environmental technology agency, CETESB, told Tierram?rica.

Proliferating in many cities are "moto-couriers", which deliver documents, perishable food and other small packages, as well as "moto-taxis", which provide one-person transportation (in addition to the driver).

The problem doesn't receive due attention from the authorities, says Aldemir Martins de Freitas, president of the Motorcycle Workers' Syndicate of Sao Paulo (Sindimoto), pointing to the 70 accidents per day involving these two-wheeled vehicles in his city.. An average of one motorcycle driver dies each day in Sao Paulo. 

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The industry has made an effort to comply with the programme, and technological advances like electronic fuel injection and catalytic converters have helped expand exports of motorcycles, to 15 percent of production, said Carvalho. The larger motorcycles are already being manufactured with the latest technologies. The problem lies with the smaller motorbikes, which are more numerous and more difficult to regulate, the CETESB spokesman added.

Brazilian motorcycles do not use cleaner fuels because their lower consumption of gasoline doesn't justify substitution with ethanol, and there are no technical standards in place for using natural gas in small engines, said the manufacturers' association executive Paes.

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