The last thing you'll hear or remember

“ The last thing I remember was hearing the screaming tires and brakes…and then when I looked at the rear view mirror all I could see was the front end of a truck!”

I’ve watched and read so many accounts of what’s it like to be rear-ended by a truck that I’ve somehow become ill-at-ease being around them on the highway. I’m especially paranoid about a speeding truck with a container van tailing me or passing alongside, especially on bumpy roads. Last week I saw for myself a rear end collision involving a White Subaru station wagon that was rammed by a multi-car carrier on the Manila bound E-pass lane of the Star-SLEX interconnector.

When I saw the damage caused to the very expensive Subaru, I figured that the car carrier’s brakes were not enough to stop the momentum created by a backload of five or six cars.

When the toll road operators opened up their respective electronic payment lanes or E-pass lanes, the last thing I expected was for trucks, buses and heavy equipment vehicles to be allowed to use E-pass lanes as well. If trucks and buses are not allowed to cruise on the overtaking or fast lanes, why should they be allowed on the E-pass lanes either?

Unfortunately the toll operators don’t discriminate when it comes to making money and so most of us E-pass users have had to put up with delays from bus drivers who don’t have any load on their E-pass and simply use the convenience and still pay cash. But when the toll operators place small vehicles at risk of being used as braking points by buses, trucks and cement mixers, it’s about time for us motorists to raise up a stink! It’s bad enough that E-pass holders get delayed because there’s never a clear access to the dedicated lane, but when an E-pass becomes your lottery ticket for a rear end collision, this nonsense has to stop.

The Toll regulators and DOTC has to put their foot down and separate private vehicles from commercial vehicles especially at the tollbooths!

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I don’t know what the Land Transportation Office has been doing about it, but perhaps it’s about time that a serious evaluation should be done on the quality of teaching/training being given for student drivers.

I don’t know why or what the logic is but I’ve been meeting more and more new drivers who can only drive automatic transmission vehicles. I’ve also noticed that people who go to “driving school” learn to operate vehicles” but are far from competent and confident as drivers. As a consequence we now have more and more new drivers who are actually causing delays and obstruction on the road because they have not had enough “schooling”.

The sad part is that most of these drivers actually get their “regular drivers’ license” without undergoing a tough and thorough test at the LTO. In fact we have the reverse, drivers only get to go through LTO/MMDA driver seminars after they have been arrested for serious violations.

I understand that the LTO in spite of the millions if not billions of pesos they make, is not organizationally or operationally set-up to fulfill it’s mandate to scrutinize driver competency. This being the case, it might be a good start to enter into partnerships with purpose driven organizations such as the AAP or Automobile Association of the Philippines, the Honda Driving Safety Academy and other such groups to undertake the practical testing and qualifying exams for drivers.

This way, we can at least be sure that all new drivers can actually drive properly and confidently. As for what cars or transmission types they can drive, isn’t it logical to train new drivers with a manual transmission first since after that, the automatic would be a breeze? It pains me to see parents forced to buy “automatics” only because their children were not taught to drive manual transmission. But what scares me is that in the event of an emergency what do they do, call a taxi? Nuts!

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I don’t know why it is that many car owners don’t pay particular attention to tire pressure? I have noticed with increasing frequency incidents of tire failure, sidewall explosions etc. mostly because tires were under inflated. I assumed that people were merely ignorant about tire pressures or plain forgetful until someone tells them how dangerously soft their tires are.

This summer I observed what might be the possible cause of many such problems. My theory is that many people have been softening their tire pressures believing that their tires would otherwise be bouncy, noisy or hard. By setting lower PSIs or letting out some air drivers believe they correct the problem of “Tag-tag” or jarring rides.

Unfortunately the problem has nothing to do with tire pressures. The truth of the matter is we have generally bad road surfaces and road quality. Many of the recommended tire pressure are based on normal loads and normal roads often based on western standards. Unfortunately, here in the Philippines we don’t have that ideal situation so when car owners pump up their tires to the ideal setting, we tend to end up with less than ideal riding conditions.

I understand that we all want a smooth ride as much as possible but under inflating your tires will be expensive and possibly painful if not fatal in the long run. Don’t mess with tire pressures because it can kill you.

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Now that the local elections in the province of Batangas are over, perhaps the provincial officials can pay more attention to properly managing the flow of traffic and driver discipline along the National highway from the town of Sto. Tomas, Tanauan, Malvar, Lipa  — all the way to Batangas City.

The first serious concern is that there is no proactive law enforcement group and provincial body that is addressing the lack of discipline among Jeepney and tricycle drivers in particular. As a result, they have begun to act as king of the highway creating traffic jams, illegal terminals and simply doing as they please. While these people may be a rich source of votes, they can also become a serious threat if allowed to rule the highways and political outcomes. Cut their horns now before they begin to grow tails as well.

The second serious problem that may cause strife or conflict among town Mayors is the failure of some Mayors particularly in the town of Malvar to keep the highway clear of illegal terminals especially in front of the LIMA Industrial Park. Because of the obvious mismanagement of the area, commuters have experienced “rush hour traffic” on the highway all because Jeepney drivers are now Kings of the road in that part of Malvar, Batangas.

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E-mail the author at Utalk2ctalk@gmail.com