MANILA — road accidents are still among the top causes of death in the country where about 12,000 Filipinos died in 2024 in a road crash or some similar manner, while over 37,000 other victims were recorded with road-related injuries.
Health secretary Teodoro Herbosa bared these statistics during the recent 2025 Road Safety Summit, even as he exhorted that the country should aim to reduce these numbers by half, in around three years.
While that sounds ambitious, Herbosa’s suggested solution is rather simple: a full implementation of the thirty kilometers per hour (30kph) speed limit on city and municipal streets.
Republic Act No. 4136, or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code provides that passenger cars and motorcyclers are limited to 30kph when “on city and municipal streets, with light traffic, when not designated ‘through streets.’”
Herbosa and the DOH believe that limiting vehicles to 30kph will not only make city streets safer, but also more accessible to pedestrians and other road users.
