Daily accidents and elusive progress

Lives are lost and injuries occur daily in our roads mainly due to the recklessness of many drivers, especially of motorcycles. We’ve seen accidents countless times and would see more for sure.

There were at least 26,599 motorcycle accidents officially reported by the Road Safety Unit of the Metropolitan-Manila Development Authority (MMDA) in 2022. This number even increased by 17.3 percent in 2023. In simpler terms, there are at least 78 motorcycle accidents daily. If this is not alarming, then we’ve grown too callous to even notice. Or perhaps, the reports simply don’t catch our attention.

Most of these accidents, about 70 percent, occurred at intersections where motorcycles are hardly noticed by drivers of larger vehicles who would be surprised by the sudden collision of a faster though much smaller bike and would usually have fatal results. Furthermore, 80 percent of these accidents end up in deaths or serious injuries.

Preventable reasons caused accidents. Loss of control, speeding and impaired driving are the typical reasons why such accidents happen. This means, loss of lives and injuries could have been prevented. These are causes that are on the side of the erring drivers themselves. Of course, there are also uncontrollable reasons, especially when the accident is caused by other drivers. But again, most of the reasons were within the power of the victims themselves had they been more responsible, careful or even better trained in road safety rules and driving skills.

Based on statistics, the odds against surviving a motorcycle accident 90-95 percent. This is quite an uphill chance. At the minimum, motorcycle accidents would result in back pain, abrasions, wounds,and broken bones on top of the trauma.

Car accidents are the larger killer of people. Over speeding, reckless driving, human errors such as inattentiveness or bad turning, on the other hand, are the typical root causes for car accidents on our roads.

While motorcycle accidents comprise 22 percent of road vehicular accidents, car mishaps are 54 percent of the total road accidents in the Philippines in 2023. For the National Capitol Region alone, at least 86,000 vehicular accidents were reported by MMDA. In translation, there are 235 accidents daily in Metro Manila. In 2021, it was reported that at least 11,000 deaths resulted from such accidents – or 30 fatalities daily!

There are more than 13.8 million registered vehicles in the Philippines. At least 8.5 million are motorcycles which have already replaced the jeepney as the new king of the road. No wonder there are more vehicular accidents involving them. But in my own experience, I regularly notice the motorcycle riders notoriously ignoring signal lights of cars. They would typically speed up despite the precautionary signal being done by the other road users. Hence, red flags that accidents could involve these drivers due to bad road habits.

Mass transport is long overdue. We can tirelessly discuss accidents, statistics on them and the corresponding reasons why they happen and how they can be avoided or minimized. But the human factor of mindlessness, recklessness or pure lack of proper training would inadvertently continue claiming lives on the road.

On a deeper perspective, our struggling economy would always push people to resourcefully and desperately find the means to navigate the endless survival route to work every day. Buying a motorcycle, propped up by affordable financing, is the easier mechanism that would equip many Filipinos to cope with their mobility issues. The rising cost of fares when using the traditional jeepneys, buses and tricycles are both inconvenient and inefficient.

The time lost plying the dense roads of Metro Manila, the foul smog that stubbornly sticks to your clothes are the best disincentive to patronize the said usual means of transportation. If you’re more patient to line up and have the funds to use, the highly crowded MRT and LRT systems can be a viable option. But these lines are yet to be connected and the limited number of trucks and routes themselves merely create a dent in the huge demand for a reliable and efficient mass transport system.

The good news is, the first Metro-Manila Subway Project is already being constructed. This will catapult our quest for having a transportation option that can be the mode of primary choice amongst commuters. This is going to be available by 2029, according to the Department of Transportation (DOTR). Literally, this will bring convenience, pride and efficiencies to the workers and employees who can be more productive to strengthen our economy.

But more importantly, this can symbolically inspire our national leaders to create and pursue a larger masterplan that will provide our communities an interlinked mass transportation system that will be enough to make our economy vibrant and allow our citizens to move back and forth with ease and enough safety to be able to regularly go home to their families and loved ones.