Traffic impossible!

I just came across a letter written by an American living in Cebu to an editor of a newspaper complaining about the driving habits of most Filipino drivers. It's not very often that I get to read about foreigners complaining of how Filipinos do things in our own country. Many Filipinos I know don't reading letters like those. The last time a nasty Indian complained in a newspaper here of how airlines were being run in this country, a reader told him to "love [this country] or leave it!"

But that letter of the American didn't give me any negative feeling for the writer at all. In fact, I sympathized with him. There was nothing racial about the letter. In fact, it could have been written by any Filipino, except that yes, as a general rule, Filipinos drivers are not too familiar with traffic rules. And that's putting it mildly.

It's not that difficult to figure out why this is so. In the first place, it's so easy to get a driver's license in the Philippines. I even have a nephew who was even given a license even though he didn't know how to read. I really expected him to flunk his test. But it turned out that on the day of his driving test, the examiner also gave him the answer sheet, with the stern warning,

"Don't get a perfect score!" He passed the test, all right. And that "imperfect" score also resulted in imperfect driving abilities. For example, he wouldn't drive on a road with a sign which read "Slow down, humps ahead," because he thought it said, "No Entry."

Then, there are those motorists who think they know the rules but violate them anyway, especially when no one is watching. The funny thing is, when there's no one watching over traffic, the only way to get to where you're going is to drive the way Frank Sinatra did it. And the traffic guys are headed for home at 6 pm while the "no entry" rule is in effect along Perdices, Cervantes and Real Streets until 8 pm. So can you guess what happens especially between 7 and 8 pm on these streets?

As a law-abiding citizen, I want traffic laws to be respected. So, when I see vehicles going the wrong way on a one way street, I try to block them in a not-so-subtle gesture that they are not about to have their cake and eat it too.

One time, along Real Street--a one-way street until 8 pm -- I saw a Ceres bus heading my way on my lane at 6:30 pm. I stopped on my lane and put my lights on high beam and honked my horn for a looong time.

The driver of the bus, to his credit, calmly sat there, waiting for me to leave. It turned out that the City had blocked the road where the buses usually pass because they were using that road for a special occasion! That situation could have resulted in a violent altercation all because nobody warned the regular users of Real street of the change in traffic rules that day.

Another time, on this same road, a van was headed my way on my lane at about 7 pm. I again stopped, put my light on high beam and honked my horn for a looong time. The other driver seemed perplexed. I thought he eyed me with a "Do-you-want-to-kill-somebody?" look. After a few seconds of just sitting there, I looked at the plates and saw that the van was a government vehicle. My irritation turned to regret when I realized I had just blocked an ambulance on its way to the Holy Child Hospital! This ambulance, from out of town, was so poorly maintained it didn't even have functional warning lights and sirens.

And the drivers of these ambulances are apparently not oriented on Dumaguete one way streets.

So with all those givens, how do you put sanity in our streets? I don't have the foggiest idea. But one thing I'm sure of--this is going to take a very long, long time.*

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