Jobers Bersales
I’m glad Cebu Business Club President Gordon “Dondi” Joseph has brought out the issue of poor, inadequate, if not totally absent, driver education in Cebu as a major factor in our current traffic mess. I hope the government will take to his observations and heed his recommendations to address this issue aside from all the multibillion-peso road infrastructure projects being planned for Cebu.
At the end of the day, no matter how many lanes are added to our streets, if the driver does not know anything about traffic rules and all those white and yellow lines — broke and unbroken — on our streets, everything will go to naught.
Consider the Kadre-Kabankala Road (now called Quezon Avenue, I think).
It used to be just a two-lane affair until two years back when two more outer lanes were added.
After over a year of delays and more delays, this three- or four-kilometer stretch that starts in Talamban and ends in Mandaue City was finally completed, fully paved from end to end.
But what has happened today? Those outer lanes that were added have been made into illegal parking lots in strategic sections of this highway. What is the point of widening streets if they end up like this?
The same is happening on A.S. Fortuna, although not as intense as the former.
Then you have cars that make illegal turns at McDonald’s right after the traffic lights and the intersection between A.S. Fortuna and Hernan Cortes, thereby snarling traffic. Ditto at Junjun and Malou’s Barbecue.
I have written countless times on these illegal maneuvers of even high-end SUV’s, but the problem persists.
And this happens just when the light is green for go on this thoroughfare.
There are cameras and traffic enforcers, but they just watch.
There was even an announcement a year ago that these cameras would be used to take photos of traffic violators in Mandaue City. I do not know what has happened since then.
Today, I was going through Colon Street from Panganiban, and on the opposite lane, two jeepneys bound for Panganiban loaded passengers right at the corner of Colon and Juan Luna.
A traffic enforcer came and just shooed them away.
No traffic citations were issued. What gives?
In some states in the US, you are issued a 150-dollar fine for not signaling when turning or — and this is important for so many drivers in Cebu — using the signal light only when you are about to turn.
This is a very common practice of drivers in Cebu, and yet no one issues citations even if you find a traffic enforcer staring at the same corner.
The worst of the lot are drivers who really don’t care about courtesy, just making turns and more turns with nary a recourse to using the signal light — prompting me in one article here to recommend to car manufacturers to make those oh-so-expensive signal lights just an option since after all not everyone seem to know what they are for!
This last part I reserve for all those motorcycle drivers who just weave through traffic unmindful of solid yellow lines or solid double yellow lines painted on the streets, who drive through the opposite lane unmindful of causing problems to approaching cars, or who suddenly make U-turns without any regard for other cars.
My good friend and Vietnam War veteran Terry Davenport has a name for these idiots: kamikazes.
He has even jokingly asked me to print a T-shirt saying that the kamikaze is alive and well in Cebu: suicide drivers who not only want to kill themselves but also bring along others on the road.
And so, my dear readers, as Mr. Joseph has so succinctly said it, it is time for local governments to seriously address the lack of proper driver education or driving literacy in Cebu.
It will probably mean a loss of a few votes for our elected leaders, whose backbones appear to turn to pulp when it comes to exercising political will against these teeming masses of kamikaze drivers; but in addressing this problem head-on, they will help save lives, contribute to solving this traffic mess, save a lot of lost man hours for employees snarled in traffic and thereby adding to increasing Cebu’s economic viability.
Or we can all drive like crazy while praying that we reach home safely.
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