Last week, newspapers in Dumaguete carried the story about the City’s difficulty in carrying out an order of the Department of Interior & Local Government to prohibit tricycles/pedicabs from the national highways.
The agency’s order was simply borne out of concerns for the safety of all highway users–drivers and passengers alike.
In the order, the DILG Secretary added that these vehicles may only be allowed by the concerned Sangguniang Panglungsod or Sangguniang Bayan to traverse main highways if there is no other alternative route.
Sure enough, City and Municipal officials of Dumaguete and Sibulan did not waste time meeting to discuss how best to go around the order or as they probably would prefer, how best to comply without disrupting the livelihood of the thousands of tricycle/pedicab drivers, lest the latter blame them.
They’ve got their work cut out for them. It would really be difficult to come up with a compromise.
Is their situation difficult? Certainly not, if they just went ahead, and just implemented the government order.
But maybe what they want is to implement the government order, while hiding the fact from the drivers and operators that they did.
Impossible to do.
Fear really does enslave, doesn’t it?
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Most residents of this traffic-problem-plagued City, especially those who drive four-wheeled vehicles, welcomed the announcement from the DILG, as it would alleviate the irritatingly snail-like speed they experience driving along the national highways.
They waited for its implementation, which was expected to be soon.
Then they read in the newspapers that it wasn’t going to be implemented yet due to concerns that the move may take away the ability of tricycle/pedicab drivers from making a decent living.
The news reports quoted the local lawmakers and the drivers/operators as really saying there are no viable alternate routes because while the Magatas-Camanjac Diversion Road exists, it is “too circuitous” to make sense.
I guess this means that the tricycle/pedicab drivers will not be making enough money if they had to take that Diversion Road, not to mention that the commute would take longer.
So why build a “diversion” road if it doesn’t make sense to divert traffic to it when needed?
I thought that’s part of change. The change would be difficult at first, much more so for the commuting public, especially the students, but people will learn to cope.
Before we had tricycles, it was tartanillas. Today, what tartanillas we have on the streets are just a novelty, only there to cater to locals and tourists who want the exotic photo opportunity they provide.
Tartanillas were a necessity during their time but we didn’t keep them as primary transportation for our daily commutes today, and yet, we’re fine. We have managed to cope with the change from tartanillas to tricycles/pedicabs painlessly, and no one starved in the process.
The officials of Dumaguete would hope that their pompous blindness to the chaotic traffic of the City would spread to the residents, making them conform to their contrived reluctance to change.
When they hold their sessions, by God, they become deaf as well to the concerns of the people whom they serve. They act as if the people do not have a voice in matters that affect them, especially this matter.
Well, they do, and the City government should start to acknowledge that fact.
Do most of the people want tricycles/pedicabs cluttering up even their highways? Did they invest in cars so they may drive at the pace of a crippled snail?
Then the officials ask if there is any evidence that tricycles/pedicabs cause accidents. Well, duh, no, there’s not much evidence to suggest that! But are all accidents actually recorded and records kept?
The traffic really is as slow as cold molasses dribbling uphill that dancing the Tinikling would be inherently more dangerous.
This is not to say that it is not taxing trying not to hit them or trying not to be hit by them.
However, if you ask whether pedicabs cause any inconveniences, the resounding answer would be YES–big inconveniences! Whenever I see an ambulance navigate through traffic on the national highway going to the Provincial Hospital, I always wonder if the patient it is carrying would make it, having to wade through the disorderly clutter of tricycles/pedicabs.
Add to that the fact that many drivers do not know how to give way to emergency vehicles, and that patient may face an even higher chance of not making it.
The lack of training/information dissemination can be blamed for this. The ones with bleeding hearts for tricycles/pedicabs don’t care–their condition is only an idiom.
Is it ever a wonder why Dumaguete is just a pretender to modernity?
It welcomes everything that is modern while keeping everything that’s old and irrelevant. It is a hoarder that has run out of room to put old stuff in. So, it leaves them out along with everything else. The result is one glorious clusterf--k.
Other countries undergo change as well. Many of them are ahead of us. They had to shed the old to welcome the new. Their governments spearhead the changes, explaining to their people that change is necessary, and must happen. They admit to them that it is scary to adopt something new, but they would be right by their side to guide and help them cope.
This is what the Dumaguete government should do while it stands its ground. People will adapt and the government should help them find new livelihood.
Instead, what we see is the government itself being afraid of change. It balks at the thought that it might have to provide help and guidance to its people; to come up with livelihood programs to help them cope until they can be on their own again in an entirely new or similar endeavor.
It opts, instead, for the status quo because it is easier, no thinking involved, much less political creativity, no mistakes, no blame, no chance of a political death.
There are about 2,500 tricycles which immediately means there would be as many drivers. And what about the owners, the wives, the children, the close kin, and all whose hearts would bleed if their livelihood is disturbed? That’s a whole lot of people whose support matter.
I assure anyone, though, there would be more of the rest of us, and our support matter just as well. It is time to give us something satisfying out of the whole mess.
I suppose our local leaders could somehow make sense of their argument, but only when certain other things are in order. If they want to be hell-bent on allowing the tricycles/pedicabs on the national highways and, we might as well include City streets, then fix the traffic problem.
Make sure there is order in our streets to ensure good unhampered traffic flow. Institute programs to train drivers, and the traffic enforcement employees as well.
Those employees could use some training themselves in directing traffic, like proper hand signals so they are more visible, and more authoritative as they stand in the middle of an intersection–and they must be in the middle of the intersection to direct traffic.
Some intersections may even need two of them. They need to learn to assert their authority.
Street signs must be kept in good repair, and in the proper spots. Pavement markings, like at intersection stops, must be repainted often so they can be easily read. Faded markings are as good as no markings at all.
Enforcement, above all, must be strict, unfailing, and consistent.
Overloaded tricycles/pedicabs must not be allowed because they cannot run at their designed speed, and therefore, become hazards that impede brisk traffic flow, not to mention the difficulty in controlling them.
You only have to drive an overloaded one, and one that’s not, to know this. The mechanical configuration of a tricycle alone already renders it inherently hard to control.
This is the reason why branded sidecar manufacturers make available driven sidecar wheels with an axle conversion for the motorcycle, if it didn’t have one already, brake-equipped sidecars, and other accessories to enhance control.
We don’t have to do all that with our tricycles/pedicabs, but we could at least not let them load more than they could safely handle to the point where even a three-legged turtle could accelerate faster than them. When they are slow, they become a nuisance and a hazard.
In other countries, being slower than the prevailing traffic would mean a traffic ticket.
Check this out. Take the largest displacement motorcycle that is used for pedicabs, and look at its specifications. Check out its engine’s power (mostly a paltry nine to 10 horsepower, and six to eight lbs./ft. of torque), and compute for power to weight ratio.
Next, check its payload capacity. You will see that any business motorcycle you can buy in the Philippines cannot really compare to even the smallest car in carrying similar loads while maintaining its design performance.
And yet, here we see tricycles carrying, at a minimum, five persons (including the driver), and sometimes way more.
Let’s just say the driver weights 125 lbs., and the four passengers weigh 110 lbs. each. This is being conservative, yet that’s still a total of 565 lbs. A bit excessive, don’t you think, considering that we haven’t yet accounted for the unsprung weight of the motorcycle and sidecar?
So, can you see why they are unwieldy? They are only motorcycles to begin with! They will become a much bigger nuisance in the coming years as the number of vehicles in our streets increase.
There is just a myriad problems with our traffic. The biggest one will have to be our drivers.
Take a four-lane highway, for instance. Why do they not understand that lane 1 (inner lane) is for fast-moving vehicles, so that the slower ones must drive in lane 2 (outer lane closer to the sidewalk)?
You could turn blue honking your horn without any effect on these drivers. It is so frustrating. It’s as if they were told that the outer lane is for parking and drying rice or whatever else they needed to dry, like copra and fish–ONLY.
I’m sure some of the City/Province leaders have seen this. I wonder what they think of it, and what they intend to do about it.
It’s very important for change to occur, but it would be a premium if it was started by our officials.
Also, our officials should start to require drivers to undergo certified training, even the most basic one, so drivers/operators would at least know the basic rules of the road. And once trained, hold them to it.
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So to the leaders of the Province, if you insist on allowing tricycles/pedicabs to run on the national highways contrary to the law, go ahead, but please fix the traffic problem you already have in Dumaguete first.
It makes absolutely no sense to do nothing about it, or worse, add to it (allowing Sibulan and Bacong franchised tricycles/pedicabs to operate in Dumaguete).
Make it something that tricycle/pedicab drivers and the rest of us can be happy with.
People who initiate change may lose popularity among the subjects of the change at first, but in the end, they’ll be credited for it, and people will remember them for having made the bold initiative.
Dumaguete has been waiting for some breath of fresh air in its traffic situation. The DILG order was going to be part of that fresh air, and it is hoped that it still is.
Yes, some tricycle/pedicab drivers may lose their livelihood, but the stark reality is that you can’t have your cake, and eat it, too.
Change is inevitable. Let’s not be afraid of it because, after all, the way it is now is the result of changes to the way it was.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
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