At traffic lights in Bogota it is common to see how many motorcyclists do not stop at the red signal. That is, unfortunately, in many cases, the decisive step toward fatality. For that reason, the Mayor’s Office of Bogota launched a strategy to change the behavior of drivers of these vehicles and get them to ride “With their feet on the ground.”
The district administration is concerned because, so far in 2026, there have been 204 deaths from road incidents in Bogota, and, of that figure, in six out of ten fatalities a motorcyclist was involved.
Attitudes at traffic lights are decisive
The strategy just launched by the Mayor’s Office seeks to increase the percentage of motorcyclists who stop in a timely manner at red lights, through educational, experiential actions and messages that invite reflection and awareness.
Responds to a worrying reality: behaviors such as accelerating on yellow, crossing on red or anticipating the traffic light change continue to be determining factors in these incidents.
For that reason, “With their feet on the ground” proposes a change of approach: moving from automatic reaction to conscious decision. Every time a motorcyclist decides to stop completely, they reduce their exposure to risk and turn an everyday moment into an act of self-care and collective care.
For the district administration, an everyday gesture can save a life: stopping, taking a pause and acting with feet on the ground. This is the call it makes through the citizen culture campaign for mobility, aimed at motorcyclists in the city.
Motorcyclists admit they do not respect red lights
The strategy, the Mayor’s Office explained in a statement, is framed within the Safe System approach and the Vision Zero policy, which recognizes that human error is inevitable, but its consequences should not be. Based on this, safer behaviors are promoted and a culture of shared responsibility in which the system and its users actively contribute to protecting life.
Accident data so far in 2026 also reveal an important paradox: motorcyclists present the highest levels of self-reported safe behavior among all road users and, nevertheless, among the risk behaviors they admit is crossing a red light when the road is clear.
“Today we take a firm step with the strategy ‘With feet on the ground’, a citizen culture initiative aimed at changing behaviors associated with road accidents,” said Claudia Diaz, Mobility Secretary. “In Bogota, we have taken on a firm commitment to life under the Safe System and Vision Zero approach. This means recognizing that human errors are inevitable, so the mobility system must be designed to forgive those errors and prevent them from turning into irreparable tragedies.”
For Santiago Trujillo, Secretary of Culture, Recreation and Sport, “in citizen culture we know that the most effective changes are not imposed: they are built from everyday decisions. ‘With feet on the ground’ seeks precisely that: that, in a critical second, motorcyclists move from automatic reaction to conscious choice. Stopping is not only complying with a rule: it is activating a basic principle of care for one’s own life and that of others.”
Through educational actions, social experiments and invisible theater, road interventions and experiences designed from the citizen culture and behavioral change approach, three dimensions will be activated in motorcyclists:
The conscious pause (presence)
The understanding of risk (realism)
Shared responsibility with other road users (connection)
Among its main components are social experiments, measurements, modeling actions among motorcyclists and a pedagogical circuit that allows experiencing, firsthand, the importance of stopping in time.