The Philippines appears to have outpaced its Asian neighbors asfar as motorcycle sales is concerned with some 1.32 million units sold last year.
This at hand, the Motorcycle Philippines Association (MPA) has raised safety concerns, as the agency’s director for administration, Atoy Santa Cruz noted that only seven of 9,000 riders have managed to pass the agency’s traffic rules exams in the past two years.
Indeed, a “ridiculously alarming figure,” as Top Gear Philippines reported.
The tests were given to the riders prior to MPA seminars regarding road safety.
Legislation is currently under review at a committee in the upper house – Senate Bill 1822 introduced by Sen. JV Ejercito – that seeks to make mandatory, a safety training program for motorcycle riders prior to vehicle registration with the Philippine Land Transportation Office (LTO).
The Motorcycle Development Program Participants Association (MDPPA), put together by Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki and KYMCO, recently recorded a year-on-year sales growth of 16% in 2017 for combined sales of about 1.32 million. That’s a lot of motorcycles on the road, and the number continues to grow as MDPPA said its sees sales reaching two million by 2020.
Citing data culled from the Department of Health, Manila-based independent news portal, Rappler has reported that motorcycle riders have constantly been the top victim of road crash injuries since 2010 – from 6,244 injuries in 2010, the number of recorded injuries increased to 19,852 in a span of 5 years.
Citing the same data, Rappler reported that riders are the most vulnerable to injuries with 19,852 cases or 65% of patients injured being people riding a motorcycle.
