It could have been another tragedy. It was luck.
Nine vehicles and a horse were involved in two separate accidents on the ring road Thursday; no deaths or injuries occurred, but officials say it was luck. The road's aging infrastructure, heavy traffic, excessive speeding on steep descents, and driver negligence create persistent hazards; 278 accidents recorded in 2022.
- Two accidents on June 16, 2022 involved nine vehicles and a horse; no deaths or injuries
- 278 accidents recorded on the Anel Rodoviário in the first nine days of June 2022
- A similar pile-up on June 10 killed two people and injured six
- The ring road opened in 1963; now carries both city traffic and heavy trucks on federal routes
Two accidents involving nine vehicles and a horse on Belo Horizonte's Anel Rodoviário caused no injuries, but a military police commander warns it was fortunate given structural and human factors that make the road dangerous.
On Thursday, June 16th—a holiday marking Corpus Christi—the Anel Rodoviário Celso Mello Azevedo, the ring road that circles Belo Horizonte, became the site of two separate collisions that involved nine vehicles and a horse. The incidents unfolded in the Caiçaras neighborhood, in the city's northwest region, along a stretch of BR-381 at kilometer 467. A car struck the horse, killing it instantly. The impact caused another vehicle to flip. That rollover triggered a chain-reaction pileup that pulled in two cargo trucks and five more cars into the wreckage.
No one died. No one was seriously hurt. But Major Frederico Roberto Prado, who commands the 1st Company of the Highway Military Police, saw the outcome as something closer to chance than safety. "Several factors kept this from becoming another tragedy," he said, "but it could have been." He was thinking of the previous Friday, June 10th, when a similar pile-up in the Betânia neighborhood, also on the Anel, killed two people and left six others injured. The road had nearly claimed lives again.
The Anel Rodoviário has become synonymous with danger. Through the first nine days of June alone, the Highway Military Police had logged 278 accidents on the ring road. The numbers reflect a deeper problem: the road was built in 1963 to relieve congestion in downtown Belo Horizonte by connecting three federal highways—BR-262, BR-381, and BR-040. But what was meant to be a bypass has become a bottleneck. Every day it carries both city residents trying to move quickly across town and heavy trucks passing through on federal routes. The infrastructure is aging. Traffic is relentless. Drivers speed down steep descents. Sections narrow where overpasses cross, creating points where vehicles bunch up and collisions multiply.
Major Prado identified the hazards plainly: outdated infrastructure, intense traffic volume, speeding on downhill grades, driver inattention and recklessness, gaps in radar enforcement, and bottlenecks at viaduct sections. But he also emphasized what he called the human factor—the choices drivers make. Excessive speed, brake failure from poor maintenance, cell phone use behind the wheel, drivers cutting across lanes to skip traffic, dangerous passing maneuvers. These behaviors, he said, feed the cycle of accidents.
The solutions being proposed move on multiple fronts. The city of Belo Horizonte committed to completing an escape ramp in the notorious "Betânia descent" section before the end of the first half of 2022, hoping to catch vehicles losing control on the steep grade. In June, the state government of Minas Gerais passed a law requiring escape ramps on state highways as well—a mandate that takes effect in 2024. Major Prado sees the Rodoanel Metropolitano, a proposed metropolitan bypass road, as a long-term answer that could divert heavy truck traffic away from the Anel entirely and make the road safer for local drivers. While that project remains on paper, he suggested an interim step: granting a specific concession to a single company to manage and maintain the Anel's daily operations, improving signage, installing electronic speed enforcement, and undertaking repairs at the bottleneck zones.
The road's history shapes its present danger. Nearly sixty years after its opening, the Anel carries a burden it was never designed to bear—a volume and mix of traffic that no 1963 engineer could have anticipated. The accidents of Thursday, and the near-miss they represented, are symptoms of that mismatch between infrastructure and demand. The question now is whether the proposed fixes will arrive before the next collision, and whether they will be enough.
Citas Notables
Several factors kept this from becoming another tragedy, but it could have been.— Major Frederico Roberto Prado, 1st Company of Highway Military Police
The human factor is often decisive—speeding, brake failure, cell phone use, dangerous passing, cutting across lanes.— Major Frederico Roberto Prado
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does this particular road keep showing up in accident reports? Is it just bad luck, or is there something structural about it?
It's structural. The Anel was built in 1963 to move traffic around downtown, but now it's carrying both city commuters and heavy trucks on federal routes. The infrastructure hasn't kept pace. You have steep descents, narrow sections where viaducts pinch the lanes, aging pavement, and no escape routes if a driver loses control.
The major mentioned the human factor—speeding, inattention, poor maintenance. How much of the problem is driver behavior versus the road itself?
Both matter, but they feed each other. A well-designed road with good sightlines and modern enforcement can forgive some driver error. This road doesn't. When you combine an aging structure with heavy traffic and drivers going too fast, the margin for error disappears.
Two hundred seventy-eight accidents in the first nine days of June alone. That's staggering. Why hasn't something major changed?
The real solution—the Rodoanel Metropolitano, a bypass that would divert truck traffic—has been in planning for years but hasn't been built. In the meantime, the city is adding escape ramps and the state is mandating them on other highways. But those are patches. The major suggested a concession—hiring one company to manage and maintain the road day-to-day—as a stopgap while waiting for the bypass.
A horse died in Thursday's accident. That seems almost incidental to the story, but it's not, is it?
No. It's the trigger. A car hit the horse, the horse died, the car flipped, and that flip set off a chain reaction involving nine vehicles. One moment of impact cascaded into something that could have killed people. The major said it was luck that no one died. That's the real story—how close we come, and how often.