Traffic mayhem

Once more with feeling, who is ever going to put some discipline (just some) on bus drivers careering down our main thoroughfares i.e. EDSA, NLEX, SLEX, Taft Avenue, Quezon Avenue, Commonwealth Avenue and everywhere else?

Am I getting paranoid? It seems every time I take EDSA from Mandaluyong to Makati or from Makati to Mandaluyong, which is a relatively (or should be) short distance, I take my life into my hands. I arrive stressed out, a near future victim of a heart attack, definitely with some kind of anxiety attack. Is this normal? It is, if you have taken the routes I just mentioned.

My household gave up riding buses to Baguio after near encounters with death as their buses sped along at frightening levels along provincial roads. A tricycle would suddenly dart in front of them, or another bus would race along and that was the precipitating event for a major accident or near accident. They arrived stressed out for which their recovery would take virtually half of the time spent at their destination.

So, who is in charge? Is it the MMDA with their rules about colorum buses, bus lanes and traffic personnel (seen only in the morning rush hour) or is it whatever traffic management agency lurking around that has not shown either its effects or its presence? Some agency must own this problem and address it.

The truth is bus drivers on these routes bully everyone by their size. Just like the schoolyard bullies. They do not keep to their lane, they stop not only in corners, but beyond corners occupying the intersections so other vehicles are trapped and cannot move until they embark or disembark their passengers. Provincial buses with the excuse that they are so behind and therefore not subject to the yellow lanes (these lanes are theoretical for most buses) come barreling down virtually into your side door.

The faint of heart (like people who live elsewhere in more civilized climes than where these routes are) have real life scares when they see a bus about two inches from their vehicle whizzing by. Salvese quien pueda (Save yourself whoever can), as they fatalistically say in Spanish when all mayhem breaks loose and there is no authority or help to appeal to. That is what is happening on our streets.

A few weeks ago, two Fil-Ams went into road rage and supposedly mauled a basketball official, who promptly filed charges invoking the mighty San Miguel Corporation because the bus was carrying some basketball team affiliated with them from Batangas. Well, here is the attempt to carry bullying to corporate levels if he would be listened to without hearing the other side. And that side was that the bus cut into them who were in a small car and they got the shock and fear of injury and death.

This is no excuse for taking the law into your own hands but with no authority around to prevent and control these road insults, the Fil-Ams reacted and cut the bus off, went up to demand an explanation, have a physical confrontation, whatever. Madness had now gained the upper hand. And, they were of course met by the basketball team ready for a seat-emptying donnybrook (only they were substantially obstructed by coolers and other stuff on the aisles plus the fact that they were sleeping).

The point was to defend their bully of a driver brought up on the Might is Right rule of the roads in this town for whatever reason right or wrong. Well, everyone in this scene was wrong and the absentee from the scene (whatever traffic agency, road official, etc.) was also guilty of the sin of omission.

Does the Land Transportation Organization (LTO) have some kind of courtesy questionnaire and seminar for those who get driving licenses, particularly professional drivers who will drive buses? If it does, it has had no beneficial effect. And whoever is in charge of day-to-day traffic has not imposed any discipline regarding driving rules and road courtesy.

The iron bars along lanes, the painted lines, the printed advisories about speed, changing lanes, etc. are not the complete solution. They have to be enforced by traffic officials at the scene and always at the scene. There cannot be a law and no enforcement of that law. Left to themselves by road authorities, many drivers go into one upmanship on the road. Bus drivers use their bigger bulk to intimidate other vehicles.

Speeding is one of their dangerous tricks, which inevitably on the kind of roads and the kind of driving behavior all around, will demand an emergency stop. And that’s where the accidents happen and claims of brake failure, blame gaming and whatever excuses occur. Cutting off other vehicles, coming terrifyingly close to them, behaving like the roads are only for them, these are the multiple and repeated sins and scenes we have daily. Always the same victims, the same bullies.

These are not civil ways to use the roads. They are also dangerous and aggravating. Is coming down EDSA a mirror of our values as citizens and of our status as a country? I hope not, but the incivility of the roads is now institutionalized and that is an ominous matter for the health and future of this society. –MA. ISABEL ONGPIN, Manila Times

miongpin@yahoo.com