Monday, September 15, 2008 Baumgart: Road safety 101 By Elisabeth Baumgart inkblots
A CAR nearly hit me as I was crossing the street using the pedestrian lane. This scenario is rather absurd, because the last time I checked, using the pedestrian lane was one of the safest ways to cross the street.
I screamed like a little girl as the car whizzed by me, missing me and some random stranger by mere inches. The dude next to me cursed loudly and damned the car to hell.
Once we safely made it to the sidewalk, we tried to get the license plate number of the car but to no avail. The crazy driver was too far down the road, possibly running over innocent pedestrians.
Just as chivalry is dead among men, road courtesy is a thing of the past.
For the past years, there are more deranged drivers out on the road than normal I-follow-traffic-rules drivers. Then again, a good chunk of the Philippine population does not follow traffic rules.
Perhaps the only traffic rule that is followed in the country is the “No Parking” rule and, just barely, the “No loading/Unloading” rule.
Any other rule is just hogwash.
Speed limits and stop signs are just decorative signs on the road. Officials might as well just color them differently in order to make them more funky and fun to look at. A little color would be wonderful on the murky roads.
While we see hair-raising car chases on television, or cops chasing crazy drivers who do not follow the speed limit, on our side of the woods nothing really happens. Everybody just likes to “put the pedal to the metal”, so to speak.
That is, until we successfully run over somebody with our need for speed and reckless driving.
Since nobody can do anything about the national problem of reckless driving these days, pedestrians who brave the road believe that the safest way of crossing the street is either using pedestrian lanes or with the help of a traffic light.
But then again, reckless drivers do not even acknowledge the presence of a pedestrian lane.
Back in elementary, I had a weekly course on “Road safety 101”. Traffic cops taught us “sniveling kids” how to cross the street. When we did something wrong, they would run over us with cars made of cardboard.
On day one I was run over four times by a cardboard car. I whined a lot, because a crudely drawn car would hit me in the gut. But despite my complaints, I successfully learned how to cross the street with the help of a pedestrian lane.
“When the driver sees you at the pedestrian lane, he has to stop. It’s a traffic rule,” said the cop, while holding his cardboard car.
Hah. Apparently, drivers on this side of the planet are blind.
Because when they see you at the pedestrian lane, they try to run you over.
And that’s way worse than getting run over by a cardboard car.
