Sunday, March 11, 2007 Covington: The gawk factor By Gary Covington Looking In
"The standard of driving remains the same - appalling -- and a great place to observe this is the J.P.Laurel/Buhangin Road overpass which, day or night,
is plagued by roadgoing idiots."
DID you catch the news coverage of the Samal Festival Cycling Challenge? All 180 kilometers of it?
I saw some of the competitors early Sunday morning on their way to the Samal ferry. Bicycling. No team bus. No RUV pulling a low-loader trailer. These guys were bicycling to the race and I'll bet, afterwards, they cycled home too.
Me? I've been slumming. For two months my bicycle has stood unbicycled. I've excuses by the thousand; the weather's been wet, my knee's playing up, the chain's slipping, but really it's good old-fashioned sloth.
Laziness. I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed.
Until the other day; when the bathroom scales - no matter which way I leaned -- told me that all those kilos I'd exercised off were making a comeback.
Hence, me spotting the Samal racers and that's what I like about bicycling -- the gawk factor. The ease of looking about and admiring the scenery. Impossible cramped up in a jeepney; absolutely impossible aboard the eyes tight shut slalom of a taxi ride but a bicycle? Stop and gawk -- see what's going on.
Magallanes Street has a new coating of asphalt. Just in time for the Araw ng Dabaw and great for the new SUVs and smart sedans, which are populating the city's streets. Had you noticed? Davao's traffic is getting richer. The trickle down principle -- at least as far as the moneyed folks -- is working. New auto models are becoming common and the expensive European marques not so rare. BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, I've even seen a Porsche convertible.
The standard of driving remains the same - appalling -- and a great place to observe this is the J.P.Laurel/Buhangin Road overpass, which, day or night,
is plagued by roadgoing idiots. Turning right from the wrong lane, ignoring give way rules, reversing down the slip roads, all good stuff, but on Sunday I
witnessed stupidity writ large -- an attempted U-turn abreast the bridge deck slip road T junction.
Attempted because the culprit, a white Kia taxi (surprise, surprise) didn't make it, the driver having trouble coordinating eye with hand. Coming down from
Buhangin he started his circular swing to the left and then... then drove straight onto the end of the downhill central divide, the yellow and black painted central divide with little trees growing on it. How do these guys qualify for a license?
And -- if any of the folks down at the highways department are reading this how about investing in one of those mechanized mini road sweepers with a rotary brush mounted at the front. There's quite a number of minor but well-used streets about town where a narrow two-lane pavement has been made less narrow by the addition of strips of concrete either side. Trouble is, the strips remain unused by most traffic, the grit accumulates and solidifies into lumps and bumps and, next thing you know, the extra width is unusable.
Noticeable thanks to their absence is the relative lack of billboards. Tarpaulins have gone -- rolled up and stored until the dust settles -- but there's confusion over the word dismantle. I've yet to see a billboard dismantled in the proper sense; taken to pieces, pulled down, removed never to be seen again.
The scaffoldings remain. Blots on the cityscape. Rusting, unsightly and some very rudimentary indeed; built from lengths of slender angle-iron tack-welded together with structural strength relying on the more the merrier principle. Their owners no doubt are waiting for the concerned agencies to be distracted and looking the other way when newer, bigger tarpaulin billboards will be hoisted and foisted upon the city.
What else? Traffic lights. Aren't they great? A ripple of control in Davao's usual auto anarchy. Right enough there's still great long queues of traffic at rush hours but never mind; lean back, adjust the headrest, admire the scenery and gawk about.
