How to make roads safer for motorcyclists? This European city is showing the way

Motorcycles worldwide contribute greatly to the mobility of the masses, especially in continents like Asia and Europe. In these two continents, motorcycles and scooters account for a large chunk of the automobiles on the roads. However, the road infrastructure in the major part of the world still favours cars or other four-wheeled vehicles. Spain's Barcelona aims to change that, as it plans to revamp its streets to accommodate the two-wheelers in a better manner. For that, instead of banning the two-wheelers on the city roads as Paris did, the Spanish city aims to redevelop parts of its road network that will make motorcycle riding safer.

Moto Station reports that Ajuntement de Barcelona (Barcelona City Council) has been assigned with the task. The strategy includes a two-pronged approach. The first one is how motorcyclists and car drivers ride and drive. The city council aims to launch training programs, use real-world examples, and organise safe-driving seminars for both two-and four-wheeler users. The car drivers have been majorly trained to look out for other cars and large vehicles but not trained to pay much attention to motorcycles and bicycles. The Barcelona city council aims to change that through the training program.

The second phase of the strategy is to concentrate on technical innovation that would assist the motorcyclists with new technologies. Also, this plan aims to pinpoint the accident hotspots. The city council aims to use the urban mobility lab for innovating new technology, which would give the riders a heads-up about the accident-prone zones, changing weather and road conditions as well.

This move comes as Barcelona, like many other European cities, heavily depends on motorcycles for mass mobility. The report even claims that 33 per cent of all registered automobiles in the city are two-wheelers.