COUNTERFLOW VIOLATORS
VALENTINE’S Day is a day of love, but for the traffic enforcers implementing the counterflowing executive order in Cebu City, there is no love for the violators.
Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) Operations chief Francisco Ouano said on Thursday that they apprehended 19 violators and impounded their vehicles.
These are 15 motorcycles, 2 private cars and 2 passenger jeepneys.
“Based sa atong ikaduhang semana nga assessment, niminus na ang mga ni-violate sa executive order. Kahapon (Wednesday), duna gihapoy mga ni-counterflow apan wala kaayo tay nadakpan tungod kay traffic kaayo (The violators have decreased, but yesterday there were still those apprehended violating the anti-counter flowing order but because of the heavy traffic there were only a few violators as compared to the previous days),” Ouano told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview.
He said that there were an influx of people on the streets because Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day.
He also said that there were some vehicle owners who even tried to ask for a settlement in place of the 30-day impounding of their vehicles.
“Naay mga nihangyo. Amo silang giingan nga sa pagdisiplina wa gyud tay mahimo ana kay tunggod sa atong gisunod nga EO. So obligado gyud ta nga mosunod aning impounding sulod sa 30 ka adlaw (There were those who negotiated to settle their violation instead of impounding their vehicles but we told them that this is about discipline.
We are following the EO which includes the impounding of their vehicles for 30 days),” he said.
Most of the impounded vehicles were caught along Colon Street, Ouano said.
All the vehicles caught counterflowing were already transferred to their new storage area at the covered court of the Bigfoot Studios in the SRP.
Also, Ouano said the CCTO impounded a (multicab) for encroaching on a pedestrian lane.
In his press conference yesterday, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said the penalties for some traffic violations are on a case to case basis.
One of which he cited is the violation on junction boxes.
He said vehicles encroached in the junction box will not have the same penalty as with the counterflowing vehicles.
“We will not impound for junction box violations. We might increase the fine. We’ll need an ordinance to do that. The reason why we do impounding for counterflowing is because the crime is aggravated by a willingness to defy the law,” Osmena said.
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