CEBU, Philippines - As motorists, we share the road with non-motorized vehicles and pedestrians. Often times, we have to be extra defensive as a good number of these elements have no knowledge of road safety. How often have we had to swerve away from pedal-powered bikes that suddenly decide to cross to the other lane right in front of us? And how often have we had to suddenly hit the brakes as a distracted, text message reading person crosses the road in front of us, assuming that their raised hand, with their palm facing us, would be enough to protect them from a two-ton rolling behemoth?
It is bad enough that the increasing number of gnat-like moving scooters and mopeds are making the streets hard enough to drive. The increasing number of pedestrians who have no regard for their personal safety is making matters worse. Despite the presence of anti-jaywalking laws, pedestrians still find it their divine right to cross anywhere they please. Nevermind that it’s a poorly lit highway or a high traffic volume metro road, many such pedestrians have this mistaken notion that they are indestructible and just calmly waltz across the street.
It is true that, as motorists, we are mandated to give way to pedestrians who cross the street on marked out pedestrian crossing lanes. But the prevailing sentiment, however, is totally different. Many pedestrians believe that they can cross the street anywhere, at any time. They believe that all they need to do is raise their hand to command the incoming vehicle to stop, and then cross. Because motorists would rather avoid the inconvenience of having to deal with these self-righteous pedestrians, they are forced to hit the brakes and let them shamble across the road.
There are times, however, that there would be a breakdown in communication and the motorist would not stop and the pedestrian would move forward. One such incident happened last week. It was bad enough that the pedestrian lost her life, the fact that the driver of the red Sedan that allegedly hit the pedestrian sped off made it worse. Not only would the driver face a much bigger penalty for leaving the scene of a crime, but the fact that the local law enforcers could not specifically identify what make and model the vehicle was makes thing so much worse. And to top it off, they admitted that their inappropriately low-res traffic camera could not allow them to read the license plate of the red Sedan. All they can go on with is to look for a red Sedan that has damage on its front end, since a part of the front end of the vehicle fell off at the scene of the crime. Good luck with that!
A couple of years back, city councilors floated the idea of massively increasing the fine for violators of the anti-jaywalking ordinance. Oddly, this met stern opposition from the traffic enforcement group as they believe the move to be anti-poor. I could not but object to this very discriminatory remark as it is not a fair assumption. Are they trying to imply that economically underprivileged people are the only ones prone to violating this ordinance?
It would be very sad if this would be the prevailing mentality and sentiment among the people who have been nominated to safely guard our roads. If this is how they think, it is no surprise that the general sentiment that the privileged do not get apprehended is prevalent among the masses. To the traffic board, justify your mentality all you want but, all I can say Is, “just talk to the hand.”