Carcidents

A car nearly rammed into the side of ours as we were driving home along NLEX after a weekend sortie.

The other car had been abruptly crossing from the rightmost lane to the leftmost where we were, rudely cutting other motorists, and didn’t slow down until we honked the horn at him. He would’ve hit us in the front passenger seat side.

The driver was a he, all scruffy looking and obviously wasn’t even shaken by the near collision. His passenger, an elderly man, in the front seat was sleeping and had been unaware that he had been close to not waking up ever after.

We were lucky that time we came out of it without a dent. There are people who aren’t as lucky.

The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) says that a total of 3,077 vehicular accident-related injuries have been reported for the first quarter of 2010.

That’s almost one-third of the total 9,521 injury cases reported in 77 government and private hospitals. The NEISS reports that “collision accidents accounted for 41.2 percent of the cases.”

About 45.1 percent of the total vehicular accident-related injuries occurred in Central Luzon, nearly two-thirds or 61.5 percent of which transpired between 8 a.m. and 7:59 p.m.

Perhaps it’s because there are more people on the road and many of those people are rushing to go somewhere, late because of the heavy traffic.

The NEISS further reports that 76 percent of those involved in traffic accidents are men.

That should put to rest all the jokes about women drivers. If there are less women involved in traffic accidents, then that should mean women drive more carefully. Right?

But it could also be because there are more men driving cars. Or, at least, motorcycles.

The same NEISS report says that most victims were on a motorcycle. The other victims are occupants of a jeepney or cargo truck.

In about 20 percent of the cases, the driver is drunk.

The driver of the car that almost hit us didn’t seem drunk. He just looked like he wasn’t too aware of the other motorists around him.

Ninety-nine percent of vehicular accident victims reached the hospital alive. But, take note, 66 percent of those who didn’t reach hospital alive—either they died on the spot or on the way—were motorcycle occupants.

Motorcycles really are cheaper, convenient and fast. The downside is, it seems, you also have a swift ride to heaven on it.

Nearly three-fourths of injury cases are discharged after treatment while the remainder suffer serious enough injuries to require further treatment like therapy.

The Department of Health has this recommendation: “In order to prevent injuries and deaths, the Health department recommends the use of safety helmets for motorcycle riders, to refrain from driving when under the influence of liquor/alcoholic beverages, and to strictly comply with existing traffic rules and regulations.”

These recommendations sound simple enough, and yet it is surprising that drivers need to be reminded of them.

The Health department also wants Congress to pass a law against drunk driving and another requiring motorcycle riders to use safety helmets.

Again, this recommendation is simple enough, and yet lawmakers haven’t enacted it. A congressman would more easily file a bill to amend the charter rather than a law that would directly benefit the people.

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Last week I wrote about President Benigno Aquino 3rds campaign against traffic counter-flow and wang wang and what ordinary taxpayers think would be other good and practicable projects to start with.

Here’s an addendum from reader Niven Hertez: “Take pictures and make public those billboards bearing the governor’s/congressman’s/mayor’s etc . . . name c/o public funds . . . there is a lot!”

Niven further writes: “If you just go to Camarines Sur you will have a classic example of politicians [big and small]. Their names are all over the walls of public schools, covered basketball courts, roofs, waiting sheds, you name it.”

I suppose we all share the sentiment that it’s all right to flaunt everything you’ve done to help the people, but don’t act as if the funds that you used came from your own pocket.

Public funds built those public schools, covered basketball courts and waiting sheds.
Don’t you forget that. –JOHNNA VILLAVIRAY-GIOLAGON, Manila Times

johnnavg@hotmail.com