A dangerous road culture

To date, I still have to actually see a traffic enforcer apprehend a tricycle or jeepney driver glaringly defying the city’s traffic rules.

I say this because everytime I’m stopped by the red light in an intersection, I obediently stop right before the pedestrian lane marked by two thick white lines. But as I patiently wait for the green light, a tricycle, and even a jeepney, suddenly appears from nowhere and occupies the space right in front of me, blocking the pedestrian lane in the process.

Isn’t this is a clear traffic violation? Unfortunately, to the city’s traffic enforcers, this is not because this has been happening everyday right under there very noses and they did not do anything.

At the intersection of Burgos St. and Perez Blvd. one early evening, I was tailing the vehicle of then city executive Elmer Lorica. I supposed he was going to turn left to Perez Blvd. while I was on my way to Guilig St.

From the left lane of Burgos, outside the iron railings, a white van suddenly appeared. He is not supposed to be there, I thought.

But just when I was looking for the traffic enforcer to see if he noticed the vehicle, Elmer got out of his vehicle and called for the traffic enforcer to direct him to apprehend the driver of the erring white van. At that moment, I had wished Elmer would always be at that intersection.

To my mind, most tricycle and jeepney drivers violate traffic rules simply because they do not know that what they are doing are violations. Or, if they do know, they do it simply because they know that they can run away with it.

The Land Transportation Office should partly get the blame for the emergence of this road culture. This is because the LTO does not have a stringent process in the issuance of driver’s licenses.

For instance, drivers do not even have to go through actual driving tests before they are issued their licenses. And with fixers still hounding the LTO, getting a driver’s license is still as easy as buying cigarettes. Somebody I know did not even know how to drive when he got his professional driver’s license.

On the part of law enforcers, they should be more aggressive in enforcing traffic rules. Those repeatedly apprehended for the same offenses should be made to undergo an honest-to-goodness seminar on road courtesy.

There has to be a way to discipline erring drivers. Otherwise, even if we fill up our streets with concrete barriers and iron railings and install traffic light in every intersection, our traffic will continue to worsen if we have drivers who think they are above the law.

ENDNOTES: It was Bayambang Mayor Leo de Vera’s birthday last Thursday, August 11. I missed his party at his residence in Barangay Bical. But those who were there swore that his spacious compound was teeming with guests that included Police Regional Director Freddie de Vera. I’m sure everybody left Mayor De Vera’s house happy… The Rotary Club of Dagupan led by Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez had a bloodletting activity last week. The vice mayor himself, after passing the screening, donated blood and it was almost immediately used to save a dengue fever victim confined at the Region1 Medical Center. Mabuhay ka, Vice!

QUICK QUOTE: To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. -- Emily Dickinson