Guayaquil Road Deaths Hit Pedestrians and Motorcyclists Hardest

Guayaquil's road-safety numbers point to a clear risk group: people walking and people on motorcycles.

The 2025 Road Safety Yearbook from the Autoridad de Transito y Movilidad says 75% of people killed in Guayaquil traffic crashes that year were pedestrians or motorcyclists.

The city recorded 300 road deaths in 2025, a 15% increase from 2024.

Who Was Killed

The report counted 138 motorcycle riders and 87 pedestrians among the fatal victims.

Together, they represent three out of every four people killed in traffic crashes in Guayaquil.

Men made up 83% of identified fatalities. The most affected age groups were 20 to 29 and 30 to 49.

Speed Is the Main Factor

The yearbook links seven out of every ten traffic deaths to speeding.

In total, 208 of the 300 deaths recorded in 2025 were tied to that behavior.

The ATM also reported that, during 2025 controls, it detected vehicles traveling above 150 kilometers per hour on Via a la Costa.

Compared with the previous year, motorcycle deaths increased 14%, while pedestrian deaths increased 18%.

ATM relaunched the campaign La velocidad mata, baja la velocidad to raise awareness about the consequences of driving above speed limits.

What This Means for Expats

If you live in or visit Guayaquil, especially areas with wide avenues and fast traffic, treat walking as a route-planning issue, not just a distance issue.

Residents have pointed to dark streets, poor signage, missing safe crossings and limited pedestrian infrastructure on high-traffic corridors such as Via a la Costa, Francisco de Orellana, Juan Tanca Marengo and Avenida 25 de Julio.

For expats, the practical advice is to be conservative: choose better-lit crossings, avoid assuming drivers will slow down, and take extra care around fast corridors even when the destination looks close on a map.