Guatemala · Rule of law and road safety
1,000 days ignoring a Constitutional Court ruling
1,000days
since Guatemala's Constitutional Court ruled, on January 30, 2024, that the President should issue the mandatory vehicle insurance regulations. They remain unpublished.
What happened
- 1996
Guatemala's Traffic Law has required mandatory vehicle insurance since 1996 (Decree 132-96, Article 29), but the regulations needed to apply it were never issued.
- January 30, 2024
The Constitutional Court ruled (case 7105-2022) that the President should issue them.
- March 2025
President Arévalo signed and published the four regulations, the Reglamentos GUATE para GUATE (GUATE para GUATE regulations), in Government Agreements 46 to 49-2025 on March 17, and repealed them three days later, in Government Agreements 56 to 59-2025 on March 20.
They have not been published again.
The human cost
- 10road deaths a day: 3,653 in 2025Source: INACIF, National Institute of Forensic Sciences
- 10,000estimated deaths since the Court's rulingEstimate based on INACIF data
- 1 in 10victims receives any help from those responsibleSource: Alianza Guatemalteca por Guatemala
The economic cost
- 3 million+workdays lost in 2024 among workers enrolled in social securitySource: IGSS, Guatemalan Social Security Institute
- Q138.5 millionin IGSS medical costs in 2024, twice as much as five years earlierSource: IGSS, Guatemalan Social Security Institute
The solution, already written
Each victim receives
Q4,000 to Q200,000
about US$500 to US$26,000
- Paid by the mandatory insurance of the vehicle involved, not by the government.
- It covers everyone on the road: pedestrians, passengers, cyclists and motorcyclists, including foreign residents and visitors.
- It is not a tax.
Who we are
Guate para Guate is a message from Comdefensa and more than 489 organizations of the Alianza Guatemalteca por Guatemala, in support of the National Unit for Road Traffic Victims (Unidad Nacional por las Víctimas de Accidentes de Tránsito).
A civic initiative. It does not represent any political party or any insurance company.
What we ask
That the regulations be published again, with a public information campaign that explains them.
Contact
Sources: Constitutional Court of Guatemala, case 7105-2022, ruling of January 30, 2024. INACIF, National Institute of Forensic Sciences, road crash autopsies, 2025. IGSS, Guatemalan Social Security Institute, traffic accident analysis, 2024. Government Agreements 46 to 49-2025 and 56 to 59-2025, Diario de Centro América. Amounts in quetzales use the 2026 minimum wage (Q4,066.90); dollar figures are approximate, at Q7.7 per US dollar.