Columbian mayor places warnings on streets

BOGOTA, Colombia -- The streets of Colombia's capital have been splashed with hundreds of bright yellow stars with white question marks in the middle -- "death stars."\nThey mark spots where people have been killed -- not by the leftist rebels and rightist paramilitary fighters of Colombia's long civil war, but by drunk drivers and speed demons who wreak havoc on Bogota's crowded streets.\nOn average, nearly 700 people die every year in traffic accidents in Bogota, and more than half of them are pedestrians.\nThe 1,500 or so pedestrians killed in the city the past five years was roughly equal to 10 percent of the death toll across the whole country from the civil war over the same period, city officials say.\nFed up with the carnage, Mayor Antanas Mockus launched the "death star" campaign in early July to bring home the message that residents risk death crossing busy streets and should walk to intersections with traffic lights or use footbridge -- at least when there is one. The flamboyant mayor painted some stars himself.\n"Just look how many there are," said Sonia Casaldes, a student who pointed from a footbridge at 16 yellow stars spotted around a busy intersection in central Bogota.\n"It's disturbing to know somebody died in that place. It scares me," she said. That's exactly the reaction the mayor wants. He hopes to shock people into giving up dangerous habits.\n"It is supposed to send a dramatic and highly visible message," Mockus said. "The idea is to ask ourselves, 'Why are there more than 400 needless (pedestrian) deaths every year?'"\nCity officials say careless drivers cause some of these deaths but stress that this campaign is specifically targeting pedestrians who recklessly dart into busy streets.\nMockus said victims' families are supporting the initiative. "They don't want the same tragedy that happened to them to happen to others"