Monkey See Monkey Do

Have you seen the commercial for the cartoon "Duck Dodgers" at Cartoon Network, the one that says "If he’s our future, then we’re history"? It may seem funny at first, but when you think about it, it has a deeper meaning. And a relevant message regarding the future of our children.

Yup. Our kids.

No, the futuristic Daffy Duck cartoon isn’t bad, actually it’s funny. I’m referring to the bad influence our kids are being exposed to everyday: the very same bad influence that will create a mindset in our nation’s future generation that chaos and lawlessness is good. This bad influence is becoming so commonplace that we have become indifferent to it and have dismissed it as a fact of life.

Unfortunately, our children have accepted it as a fact of life as well and we all have a part in creating this bad influence. This bad influence is creating a future generation of law-breakers. This bad influence is our habitual violation and oftentimes wanton disregard of traffic rules and regulations.

Admit it, you may have committed a traffic violation one time or another and got away scot-free. A sneaky left turn in a no left turn intersection, a quick u-turn where it is forbidden, or you may have even sailed pass a red light because the traffic was light or you knew that there was no traffic enforcer manning that intersection or just simply because you could. You may have overtaken on a road where there are two continuous yellow lines in the middle of the road, or you may have counter flowed in the opposite lane because the traffic in your lane was becoming heavy or because you were going to park facing the wrong way.

You may have done 140kph at the highway when the speed limit is 100 because you argued that nobody gets caught anyway or you may even have sliced through traffic using a siren even though you are not authorized to use it, much less have the real need for it. You may have driven without headlights at night because you mistakenly thought that it could prolong the life of your car’s halogen bulbs and lessen the load on its electrical system, or you could have installed high-intensity-discharge (HID) headlight bulbs that were designed for off-road use because you want to blind on-coming traffic. You could have done one of these things or all of these or even more, and are continuing to do so.

All the while, you were rife with the satisfaction that you didn’t get caught, or that those hapless MMDA enforcers never had a chance when pitted against a smart, well-educated or influential person like you. Or, that when you were indeed caught, you still got away by bluffing the overwhelmed traffic officer or bribing him if he wasn’t overwhelmed.

But you never really thought about how your actions influenced others, especially the kids. Even if you weren’t with your own children when you committed these violations, kids in other cars or on the road saw what you did and were influenced by your actions. After all, young children, up to the age of 15, are very impressionable.

These kids will carry this influence home and cheat their siblings or lie to their parents. They will carry it to school and cheat in their exams, or bully their classmates or even skip their classes. Those who will eventually finish school become employees who will cheat their employers, or become employers who will cheat their employees. Worse, they could become politicians and cheat their constituents, and eventually, steal from the whole country. Those who wouldn’t finish school will eventually settle for barely legal sources of income and livelihood, or end up in a life of crime. Worse, they could become politicians and cheat their constituents, and predictably, steal from the country and give it an unsafe and unstable image.

You must be saying that you’re not solely to blame for this bad influence and you’re probably right. Jeepney drivers, bus drivers, taxi drivers, tricycle drivers, pedicab drivers, school bus drivers, and yup, our family drivers have a big influence on our kids, not to mention those omni-present motorcycle delivery riders. Heck, even policemen driving their police cars, their own private cars or their motorcycles are traffic violators, too and are the worst of the bad influences.

Thus, you may be reasoning that you’re just a small part of the whole problem and that you wouldn’t matter much in helping find the solution. But the truth is, the solution is in our hands. If we make a conscientious effort to discipline ourselves and our ranks to follow traffic laws, we could influence others to follow it, too. You might be saying that you don’t even drive a car or ride a motorcycle, so how could you contribute? Well, for starters, we could at least be good pedestrians and law-abiding passengers, waiting for rides in designated PUV stops and walking and crossing only in assigned walk ways. Other road users would realize the value of obeying traffic rules and regulations, and we may eventually wipe out the traffic chaos, if not in our lifetime, maybe in our children’s. Who knows, we may even improve the general traffic condition in the Metro.

It may be a pipe dream, but hey, if we give it a try, it could happen. On the other hand, if we continue the chaos and the lawlessness we’re making, we’re creating a future that will ensure that civilization will become just a part of history. As the saying goes, the future’s what we make of it today.