WHENEVER I take the usual taxi ride to office, I always tell myself that the time was different when I used to drive in the city. Today there’s no such thing as smooth and easy driving when the traffic sits on the road for an hour or two. It’s not driving but pushing—step on the clutch, press it to the floor, shift gear to first, then slowly press on the accelerator... oooppss, the motorcycles are flying in and out, brake! Shift to neutral and wait, back to first gear, push ahead. If you have the patience to be slow and sure….
Go shift first, move ahead a bit now and, hey, brake!
Now as a cab passenger, I get stressed out following the road ways as though it was me driving. From the house, most cabs, on driving out of the small byways from OPPRA, cabbies don’t slow down in a “road” which is lean (and bumpy) which allows two-way passages, even while I cry out, “Blind corner na!” and step on the “brake” often enough in the seat behind the driver.
In the way up the road through Capitol site, there are motorcyclists parked in a line along the side streets as though in an authorized motorcycle terminal. Here and there, they fly out from the line for passengers who also cross the road without watching out for passing vehicles.
In the presence of motorcycles in our transpo life, I can see the stress in chauffers, car owners, bus drivers and cabbies in a creeping traffic. After one of the long stops in the middle of the bad traffic, the cabbie would reach out for his face towel to rub down impatience and fatigue, then keeps quiet as though counting the dragging edgy minutes and hating it. I try not to start a conversation with him (which he would welcome) because it could take away his wearisome attention from the road.
In last Sunday’s issue of Sun.Star Cebu, there was a news item on motorcycle driving accidents over the weekend killing 2 and injuring 7 people. The bad news was about a motorcycle colliding against a concrete post, a crash of a motorcycle against another motorcycle, a smash in a blind curve, a fatal bump on a human being. In only one weekend, the accidents happened in Bogo City, and in the towns of Asturias, Balamban and Malabuyoc, says reporter Kevin Lagunda.
Rules on driving two-wheel motorized vehicles seem sloppy in their implementation. To begin with, consider the rule on wearing helmets to protect the head from injury and prevent a fatal crash. Look around and count how many passengers, or even drivers, wear helmets while traveling in the areas up the hills away from traffic officers on to the hills beyond the Capitol.
The growth of the number of motorcyclists on the road is obvious. You see them in a bigger pack here and there than a month ago even without the help of a formal research. But there’s perhaps another way of seeing the growth. In one day this week, I saw three women motorcyclists pass by the side of the cab where I sat. One of the female cyclists looked like she was dressed on her way to office. This was like what I saw in Chiang Mai, Thailand one evening in a trip there in the 90s—a Thai woman in a party dress driving a motorcycle, perhaps on her way to a social affair for the night.
But first, we don’t seem to take the safety rules seriously, such as the use of a helmet.
Of deaths from road accidents in the US, the fatalities per vehicle mile was 37 times higher for motorcycles than for cars in a research in 2007. But there’s also the general concern in the government or among organizations on the use of safe motorcycle trainings, do we have any? In some other countries, motorcyclists are given trainings by state agencies or the non-profit Motor Safety Foundation, like a training course undertaken before a Learners License is issued to a motorcyclist.
The use of a helmet should be the first concern, a trainer might say. But there are also the Motorcycle safety clothing and motorcycle rider postures in the training.
The lure of the motorcycle is obvious: it’s cheaper than a car. It’s also getting the attention of environmentalists for its lower per-mile emission of carbon as against the other vehicles. We certainly can use training on safe motorcycle driving, yes!.
(ecuizon@gmail.com)