The recent disaster caused by Typhoon Odette was plenty proof that Mother Nature has no compunction about dishing out its worst.
It left so many people homeless and without food or electricity. Some have lost their lives. In the immediate aftermath, they didn’t even have access to their money.
Noreco II and the National Grid Corp.of the Philippines suffered extensive damage to their infrastructure and equipment that it took them a longer-than-acceptable time to repair all of it, denying electricity to thousands of households and businesses.
In fact, there are places now that are still without electricity.
In the province of Cebu, the Governor interceded for the people in getting the NGCP to shelve its apathetic attitude by going directly to the company’s President. She convinced the banking community to go to manual mode so they can serve their customers even when online services were not available.
It’s hard to say the same of our local leaders.
Even as everyone was preoccupied with cleaning up the mess in the aftermath of Typhoon Odette, my attention was jerked back to the traffic situation because of the inordinately large number of vehicles plying Dumaguete’s streets of late.
Where did all these cars and trucks come from? They say these people are from Cebu and the other cities and municipalities in Negros Oriental and even Negros Occidental. They have all come to Dumaguete City because our electricity, for the most part, has been restored.
They’ve come to buy fuel, and to shop in our stores. Robinsons has been crowded since Odette struck. Generators have sold like hotcakes, depleting our local stores’ supplies.
Last week, you cannot buy a generator from any store in Dumaguete. I lucked out, and got one two days after Odette. As I left the store, a lady came in asking if they had anymore, pointing at the one I just bought. They told her they were fresh out.
I felt for her. She’d have to deal with the intolerable heat, dead cellphones, and rechargeable lights, not to mention spoiled food in the fridge.
And there’ll be no credit for all that from their friendly neighborhood power company, who’ll just be so happy to invoke Force Majeure to answer any such claims.
Even if it wasn’t the result of an unforeseen event, they wouldn’t honor such claims, anyway.
Let’s get back to the traffic situation. Vehicles from out-of-town have invaded Dumaguete City like locusts.
The Traffic Management Office has just about given up, as can be gleaned from their inability to “manage” the City’s traffic.
They are unable to control it. They obviously lack the training, and they don’t even exude any air of authority when they are out on the streets of Dumaguete, losing to even the most undisciplined drivers, and seemingly knowing even less of the law than the ignorant ones.
Because of this, the drivers are on their own, each one always ASSUMING the other would yield to them. They are always just a wrong ASSUMPTION away from an accident, and are a nuisance at all times.
This is especially true of pedicab drivers. They are a breed of their own, always discourteous, always a disturbance. That they provide a conveyance service should not even be considered when meting out discipline to them.
To be able to stop on a dime is a good thing in so many instances. A vehicle that can stop on a dime would be able to easily avoid an accident at, let’s say, a railroad crossing, when it’s about to be hit be a speeding train. A man running blindly in the jungle would benefit from the ability to stop on a dime, just before he is about to step into a bottomless pit behind the brush. And who wouldn’t root for an athlete who can stop abruptly to catch a ball that would have been out of bounds, saving the play?
Pedicab drivers have no doubt heard of this remarkable ability, adapted it, and incorporated it in their driving habits.
As you follow these drivers, sooner or later, you’ll be in for a hazardous surprise. They’ll stop abruptly in their tracks, in traffic, in front of you, because they saw a passenger flagging them down. They won’t bother to steer over to the shoulder to get out of your way, not even for their own safety. They’ll ASSUME that you already know they would stop.
Worse, some don’t even have working brake lights or turn signals, and if they did, they won’t use them–they’ll ASSUME you’d always keep a safe distance behind them.
This article is not meant to ping on pedicab drivers alone but also drivers of those little multicab passenger vehicles as well, because of their dangerous driving habits that make them a great nuisance on our roads. They take the fun and safety out of driving, they do.
Take for instance how they negotiate intersections: when making left turns, they would make it too early that they end up driving on the left lane for a bit, against traffic, before reaching the center of the intersection where the turn can actually be made.
This habit is so prevalent, an act that is borne of haste and impatience.
Generally, you’ll never see a more impatient bunch of road users than Filipino drivers.
When traffic stops, they cannot simply wait for it to flow again: they will pass you on the right side, left side, whether there is a lane there or not. Hell, if their machines could fly, they’d pass you overhead!
Motorcycles are the worst such offenders but at least, they’re not big enough as to be almost like mobile barriers, like the multicabs and pedicabs.
When pedicab passengers want to get off, the driver would immediately stop in the middle of the lane, even in heavy traffic, just as if there weren’t other drivers behind them.
Lately, I have observed several pedicabs that didn’t have tail lights. The City simply does not impose safety standards on these franchise-holders, allowing them to be hazards to other road users.
It seems to me the pedicab operators and drivers are under the ASSUMPTION that the City condones their actions.
Is it, again, because they are voters?
When will the City embark on a quest to change all this?
Dumaguete has more than enough ASSUMPTION drivers.
Lately, huge cargo trucks have started to park overnight, lining Flores Avenue, from the pier area, stretching about a kilometer to the north, close to Lantaw Restaurant.
Flores Avenue is already a pretty unsafe road at night because it is not well-lit. Now, it has become downright dangerous because of these trucks that sometimes park on both sides.
What is the City doing about this problem? So many have complained but there hasn’t been any action on the part of the City government. The owners and operators of these cargo trucks are apparently under the ASSUMPTION that it’s okay for them to park there, overnight! The City’s inaction helps fuel that ASSUMPTION!
With the way it is in Dumaguete, I just wish a few of our City officials would shed their egotistical attitudes, and start listening to the rest of the people for their worth. They must stop ASSUMING that the public is satisfied, otherwise, we will become a City where ASSUMERS are always ASSUMING nothing but ASSUMPTIONS, and then, finally, nothing is done in the end!
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Author’s email: [email protected]
