STRICTER PENALTIES FOR PEOPLE WHO JUMP INTO TRANSMILENIO

Claudia Torres

A person’s risking his life to avoid paying for a service is a serious issue in our city. Nowadays, we see in the news and in our daily experience how students and other people jump into Transmilenio. Although there have been alarming cases of people being killed, this unacceptable practice of jumping into Transmilenio has become more and more common. According to Transmilenio’s manager and different newspapers, 54 people died in 2012 and 90% of the accidents occurred due to inappropriate pedestrians’ behavior. Considering this scenario, I think that it is necessary to stop this dangerous practice, and the only way to achieve this is with stricter penalties, such as jail.

From the point of view of the hundreds of people who jump into Transmilenio, this is a justifiable behavior because according to them, the high prices and bad quality of the service are the main causes. In this way, the National Union of Bank Employees reports that only 40% of the economically active population in Bogota has a formal job. On the other hand, although in the opening of Transmilenio, the mayor of the city (Enrique Peñalosa) promised to reduce the price of the service. Today, ten years later, we see that the gap between the price of a bus and a Transmilenio keeps increasing. For these reasons, it is possible to affirm that the majority of users have informal and low-wage jobs that makes difficult to afford such expensive means of transportation.

However, despite the high costs of Transmilenio, the true causes of this behavior are others and mirror serious problems in our culture and children’s behavior. Alexandra Rojas, CEO of the Road Prevention Fund, states that Transmilenio users have this behavior because they are in a hurry (33%), they are lazy (23%) or reckless (17%). In this point is important to mention the high participation of children and teenagers in this situation because they think that jumping into Transmilenio is a game where the risk is fun. 

Additionally, within the ways to avoid paying this service, the most unacceptable practice is to cross the street and force the station’s doors to open because it generates a great amount of accidents and deaths. For example, if a Transmilenio bus stops violently to not run over a pedestrian, it is possible to generate an accident that affects each user inside the bus, which can be really risky considering that those buses are very crowded. In contrast, if the bus does not stop, it is possible that the imprudent pedestrian ends up with serious injuries or dead. As reported by the World Health Organization, 22% of the population died in traffic accidents and 30% of these victims are pedestrians. 

To sum up, if this problem is not solved, it can generate a higher and alarming number of traffic accidents and casualties, whereby it is necessary for the government to create projects to solve this problematic. For example, I believe that the solution could start with a real eye-opener campaign that creates awareness and a self-critical behavior among people. It is important to support civic education because each user needs to take care of Transmilenio´s system, giving example with his own behavior. 

However, there are people who constantly jump into Transmilenio, and society should be stricter against them and this dangerous practice. I think this because they do not have justifiable reasons to risk their lives and the safety or comfort of other citizens. In this sense, each person must be aware of the impact of their own actions on others and for this reason, accidents generated because of this unacceptable practice must be judged with the law. Jail is the appropriate punishment because offenders do not respect existing campaigns: for instance, as part of the campaign “Save Lives” exists not only a lot of announcements at stations, like “let the doors close, your life is worthier more”, but also a penalty of a minimum wage for the people who jump into Transmilenio. However, I have never seen someone being punished.