Overview:
As public transportation collapses in Léogâne, motorcycles have become the main way children get to school. Often overloaded and unregulated, these rides expose students to serious injury or death, highlighting Haiti’s broader road safety and enforcement crisis.
LÉOGÂNE, Haiti — Each weekday morning in Léogâne, a coastal city about 21 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, schoolchildren climb onto motorcycle taxis—often five or six at a time—to get to class.
With buses, tap-taps and minivans largely gone from the streets, motorcycles or moto-taxis have become the town’s primary form of transportation. But the unregulated system operates in open violation of traffic laws, exposing children to serious injury or death and underscoring Haiti’s broader public transportation and road safety crisis. Riders range from preschoolers to high school-age children.
“Overloading and transporting several children on a motorcycle represents a national danger that requires coordinated solutions,” said Léogâne Mayor Ernson Henry in an interview with The Haitian Times.
A national crisis felt locally, as laws exist, but enforcement does not
Across Haiti, motorcycles have filled the void left by the collapse of public transit. As fuel shortages, unreliable infrastructure, insecurity and economic decline push drivers out of business, motorcycle taxis—cheap, fast and widely available—have multiplied, often without licenses, insurance or safety equipment.
In Léogâne, traditional public transport has virtually disappeared. What remains is a motorcycle monopoly, with scenes that have become disturbingly routine: preschoolers seated in front of drivers, multiple students clinging to the back, none wearing helmets, including drivers themselves.
Up to six children are regularly transported on a single motorcycle at a time, a practice that dramatically increases the risk of falls and collisions on roads where accidents are frequent and often fatal.
Under Haiti’s May 26, 2006, traffic decree—the latest road regulation code to date— motorcycles are not recognized as a method of public transportation, and overloading is prohibited. Articles 183 to 187 outline strict safety requirements, including passenger limits and protective equipment.
Yet enforcement remains weak.
Jean Patrick Jean-Louis, a police inspector and spokesperson for the Central Directorate of Traffic Police (DCPR), said no law authorizes motorcycles to operate as mass transit, even though some bikers hold public transport license plates under unclear conditions or by irregular means.
“Overloading motorcycles and transporting several children at once represents a national danger that requires coordinated solutions.”
Ernson Henry, mayor of Léogâne
In August 2025, the Office of Third-Party Vehicle Insurance (OAVCT), along with the tax authority and traffic police, launched the Moto Pa m Legal program, Creole for “My motorcycle is legal,” to register and insure motorcycles nationwide.
Despite this effort, Pierre Jean Raymond André, director general of OAVCT, said during a weekly televised government meeting that nearly 70% of motorcycles remain unregistered and uninsured.
Moto Pa m Legal run in collaboration with the General Directorate of Taxes (DGI) and the DCPR aims to generate four billion gourdes, or approximately $30 million in annual revenue, for the Haitian government.
While the program might have brought millions to the public treasury, unsafe practices persist everywhere.
“This is a difficult fight,” Mayor Henry acknowledged, saying police have issued fines and confiscated keys sometimes. “But the problem continues.”
High school students gather at the entrance to College Saint-Jean on the morning of Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. Some sit on their motorcycles and communicate with classmates while waiting for the bell to ring. Photo by Daniella Saint-Louis for The Haitian Times.
Parents caught between danger and necessity
For many families, the risk is clear—but alternatives are few.
“Putting a child on the front of a motorcycle is playing with their life,” said Rosenie Jean, a mother of a preschooler. “But for many of us, there is no other way.”
Some parents accompany their children to school by motorcycle to reduce risk. Others rely on subscription arrangements with drivers, who transport groups of children for a monthly fee ranging from about 3,000 to 5,000 gourdes ($23 to $39) per child, with discounts for siblings.
While subscriptions provide drivers with stable income—sometimes up to 30,000 gourdes, about $231 a month—and lower costs for parents, they also encourage overcrowding.
“The cost goes down, but the danger goes up,” said Nadine Martinot, another parent. “In an accident, the youngest children are the first victims.”
A mother in Léogâne rides with her two boys on a motorcycle to take them to school on Nov. 14, 2025. Photo by Daniella Saint-Louis for The Haitian Times.
Drivers are divided on safety.
Motorcycle drivers themselves disagree on best practices.
Frantz André, a subscription driver, said he places younger children in front so he can watch them. “I avoid main roads and speeding,” he said. “But some dangers are unavoidable.”
Others strongly oppose the practice.
“Handing a child to a driver and leaving them exposed in front is dangerous negligence,” said Létrice Zétrènne, a motorcycle taxi driver who refuses to transport children that way. “The police forbid it—and for good reason.”
The disappearance of buses, a deadly pattern continues with no safe ride
Until the mid-2010s, students in Léogâne relied on minibuses and state-run Dignité company’s school buses, which once provided free transportation nationwide.
Founded in 1995, Dignité expanded to all departments in 2018 with more than 200 buses. But mechanical failures, funding issues and insecurity forced services to halt in many areas.
Although the company has partially resumed operations in parts of the West Department recently, it remains absent from Léogâne. Officials say many buses are in disrepair, and security conditions limit operations.
“Handing a child to a motorcycle taxi driver and leaving them seated in front is dangerous negligence.”
Létrice Zétrènne, motorcycle taxi driver
The consequences are visible nationwide. In January 2023, two young sisters riding a motorcycle died after being struck by a fuel truck in Delmas 75, Port-au-Prince—just days after two other children were killed in a similar crash in Léogâne, according to the advocacy group STOP Accidents.
A 2021 Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) report warned that motorcycles accounted for nearly 20% of Haiti’s registered vehicles as early as 2012—a figure believed to have considerably surged since. More than 80% of riders and 95% of passengers do not wear helmets.
IBD highlights that motorcyclists and their passengers are among the country’s most vulnerable road users, accounting for about 15% of deadly accidents. However, pedestrians, often struck by motorcycles, are also not spared, accounting for 41% of road accidents.
As Haiti’s transportation system continues to unravel, Léogâne’s schoolchildren remain exposed—caught between poverty, weak enforcement and the absence of public services.
Until buses return or laws are enforced, parents, drivers and officials agree on one thing: no child’s ride to school should be this dangerous.
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