Since the place where three paths fork is held by magical or superstitious thinking as lucky, I have tended to feel the same might be true of paths that wind in a curve.
I live in a part of the City where a street fits that description — V. Locsin, a stone’s throw away from the SkyCable tower. The road curves so sharply it’s as though Nature left an indelible trace of its opposition to human progress.
How did it happen that the pioneers who built the City allowed it? For although this shape continues to engage one’s poetic fancy, in the face of the daily and nightly grind — of reality — not luck but ill-luck, is what the curve has meant.
Dear Mayor and Councilors please do something about this curve!
In the early 70s the traffic was so much lighter, we loved to walk to our place from downtown. Our footsteps ruled, not the noise of motors, and Dumaguete was like as we say a walk in the park.
But by 1982 it was like you took a time machine and something unhappy had come to the place where V. Locsin curves.
Because I’m a nocturnal I was often awake when it happened. In 1982 or 1983, a pickup coming from the east rammed straight into what was then a concrete fence — where Chooks now stands. Three people in the vehicle, the driver, another man and a young lady between them. From the unclear report that came my way later, I heard there was one casualty.
On exactly the same spot about the same time towards dawn just two weeks back, the same sort of vehicle rammed this time not a concrete wall but a tricycle with six or seven passengers including the driver. One casualty: the wife of the driver.
In the late 80s, I remember two incidents — motorcycles coming from the opposite direction. Drivers lost control and hit the same fatal electric post (which is no longer there). Both lost their lives.
Only a year ago — running in the same direction — a driver flew off his motorcycle and hit the iron gate to his right. Candles burned on the spot in the following nights.
At one time, a passenger jeepney smashed our gate and fled, escaped, real fast, before my boy Friday was able to catch plate number. It was around three or four in the morning and while that time I was asleep the other neighbors heard it and felt the earth move.
In the late 90s after I’d asked Ms. Glynda Descuatan of DYSR (at the time) to touch on the subject in her morning news and commentary and she kept at it for quite a while, the City government finally responded and put a big SLOW DOWN sign on the side of the road, the right side if you are driving from the east.
The road sign somehow disappeared for a while — and re-appeared not so long ago.
The sad thing is it’s not — even two signs one on each side — won’t be enough. In the wee hours the drivers overspeed, very likely after having had a drink or two and that’s to understate it.
WHAT CAN POSSIBLY BE DONE ABOUT IT? Repeat, the road sign is not enough. Humps will only make it worse. Widen the road appears impracticable.
We see only one possibility. Close this part of the road to all vehicles including bicycles from 10 or 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. The drivers can take San Jose Street and Romero Road to the north and the south respectively.