In a bid to implement safe motorcycle riding nationwide, Senator Ramon Revilla is pushing for the passage of his Mandatory Helmet Bill that would require all drivers and back riders of motorcycles to wear standard quality helmets.

In his sponsorship speech, Revilla pointed out that even the Health Department and the Asian Development Bank has expressed concern on the increasing number of motorcycle accidents in the country for the last three years.

There are about 3.5 million motorcycles in the Philippines, comprising 45 percent of all registered vehicles in the country and together with this is the alarming statistics of growing incidents of road mishaps involving motorcycles, Revilla said.

Citing figures gathered by the Traffic Operations Center of the Metro Manila Development Authority from January to December 2008, he said motorcycles have the highest fatality rate with 106 motorcycles involved, or 28.19 percent of the total fatal accidents.

A report of the Traffic Management Group showed that out of the total 14,202 traffic accidents in year 2004, 3,010 or 21 percent involved motorcycles. The figures rose to 24 percent or 2,798 out of 11,425 accidents in 2005. And in the first two months of 2006, the TMG recorded a total of 485 motorcycle accidents out of the total 1,364 accidents, which accounted for 35 percent of the total traffic accidents.

?The World Health Organization maintains that wearing a helmet is the single most effective way of reducing head injuries and fatalities resulting from motorcycle crashes. Wearing a helmet has been shown to decrease the risk and severity of injuries among motorcyclists by about 70 percent and the likelihood of deaths by almost 40 percent,? said Revilla, chairman of the Senate committee on public services.