God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son.” Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on.” God say, “no”; Abe say, “what?” God say, “You can do what you want, Abe, but the next time you see me comin’, you better run.” Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?” God says, “Out on Highway 61.”—The Hunted (2003)
JUST a day after the joint Manila-Mindanao media coverage of the situation of the war evacuees in Maguindanao and North Cotabato in July 2009 which we called the ‘State of the Bakwits,’ I decided to head back home to Davao from Cotabato City with my two colleagues. We rode a reconditioned van and traversed the highway smoothly from the city to Pigcawayan to Midsayap but not until we reached the middle boundaries of Aleosan and Pikit in North Cotabato that everything turned dangerous. Our driver did not notice the blind curve while our van was running at 95kph. There were no traffic devices installed warning drivers of the sudden and deadly curve in a national highway marred with dilapidated roads. In short, we met an accident. I got a right forearm fracture which left me partly paralyzed for five months and cost me around P70, 000.00 of hospital bills and therapeutic device.
And this is just sharing my personal agony borne out of, which I consider, very unsafe road conditions in many parts of Mindanao. Yet road tragedies, both in urban and rural areas, have continued to pose dangers especially to commuters—and even least-noticed, among the pedestrians—who rely on public transport to get personal businesses, jobs, and transactions done. And just recently 17 people were dead in Bontoc, Mountain Province because of a mechanically-defective bus and while writing this a van ferrying around 14 athletes who were sent to compete in a regional athletic meet in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao just reeled off a cliff which left its driver dead and the rest injured. And just today, Tuesday morning, a 16-year-old girl was killed while four people were hurt in a four-vehicle road accident in Calamba City, Laguna.
Reacting to a deadly bus accident in Mt. Province, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) aired via a national TV news network that it would check the ‘road worthiness’ of vehicles plying the route of the Bontoc rural highway. LTFRB also enforced its operation called ‘baklas’ (to forcefully pull-off) which is to legally remove a vehicular template from any unverified land vehicle owned by bus operators suspected to have plied bus units in areas not covered within their individual franchises. While being reactionary—as it always has been for this kind of reactionary government—the move was less than considerable given the mandate of government agencies tasked to consistently check the ‘road worthiness’ of public vehicles before it leave any public terminal and not just being stuck with ‘smoke-emission free’ testing duties.
Running facts
The Global Status Report on Road Safety published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009 reaffirmed that ‘more than 1.2 million people die on the world’s roads every year and as many as 50 million more others are injured.’ And what is most dismaying is that the report noted that ‘over 90% of the deaths occur in low-income or middle-income countries.’
More than anything, the report painted a painful scenario: “beyond the enormous suffering they cause, road traffic crashes can drive a family into poverty as crash survivors and their families strive to cope with the long term consequences of the event, including the cost of medical care and rehabilitation and all too often funeral expenses of the family breadwinner.’
The WHO Decade of Action Plan of which the Philippine government has committed carries five basic pillars:
· Pillar 1 – Road safety management
· Pillar2 – Safer roads and mobility
· Pillar 3 – Safer vehicles
· Pillar 4 – Safer road users
· Pillar 5 – Post-crash response
The Philippine Road Safety Action Plan (PRSAP) 2011-2020, dated on 30 May 2011, aimed to reduce traffic accident rates to 50% by 2020. Based on its matrix, PRSAP highlights Pillar 1: Improve Road Safety Management which detailed pro-active programs and responses related to road safety. Likewise, the plan aims to reduce the rate traffic accident by 50 percent in 2020 through improved road safety management.
At the helm of this plan is the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), “the primary policy, planning, programming, coordinating, implementing and administrative entity of the executive branch of the government on the promotion, development and regulation of a dependable and coordinated network of transportation and communications systems, as well as in the fast, safe, efficient and reliable transportation and communications services.”
In terms of policy, the PRSAP has required P4 million for the “passage of enabling laws, LGU ordinances, rules and regulations on road safety (i.e. driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, hand-held electronic device ban, motor vehicle conspicuity, mandatory wearing of standard motorcycle (MC) helmet, mandatory installation and use of tachograph in all PUVs,
child restraint, MC headlight on anytime of day, prohibition on MV modification.”
Pillar 2 of the PRSAP highlights ‘safer road’ which include the components: improvements of hazardous locations and safer planning and design of roads allotted with around P2.3 billion mostly managed by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the local government units.
Under Pillar 3—Safer Vehicles—the PRASP enumerates the following with corresponding budget allocation:
Implementation of Motor Vehicle Inspection System (MVIS) nationwide—P300M
Interface MVIS with Motor Vehicle Registration System—P50M
Random motor vehicle safety audit of Public Utility Vehicles (PUVs) about to leave terminals for long trips (RORO component) and tollways—P2M per year
National Vehicle Maintenance Program and Standards and its implementation—P2M per year
Application/adherence to UN World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Standards and Regulations—P10M
Tap vehicle manufacturers to issue “safety vehicle certification” to complement MVIS—P0.5M
Use of fiscal and other incentives for motor vehicles that provide high levels of protection—P0.5M
Regulation of customized road vehicles including locally manufactured vehicles—P0.5M
Rising deaths
Given the enormous attention being provided by the Philippine government in ensuring road safety for the larger public, why the perpetual traffic accidents? Why the unabated and unchecked illegal operations of public transportation companies? Recently, WHO published the
Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013 which presented a comprehensive information on road safety from 182 countries, accounting for almost 99% of the world’s population. The report indicates that worldwide the total number of road traffic deaths remains unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year. Only 28 countries, covering 7% of the world’s population, have comprehensive road safety laws on five key risk factors: drinking and driving, speeding, and failing to use motorcycle helmets, seat-belts, and child restraints.
DOTC shared this information during a conference of industry leaders last year (based on http://www.topgear.com.ph/news/motoring-news/by-the-numbers-road-accident-statistics-in-ph:)
· 13 million – total driver’s licenses issued
· 7,463,393 – total motor vehicles registered
· 270,000km – total length of roads nationwide
· 132,089 – violators of the Seatbelt Use Act
· 90% – motorcycle riders in Metro Manila that follow the Helmet Law
· 90% – motorcycle riders outside of Metro Manila that don’t follow the Helmet Law
· 79% – road crash fatalities caused by driver error
· 11% – road crash fatalities caused by defective vehicles
· 10% – road crash fatalities caused by bad road conditions and ill-maintained roads
· 16% – road crashes caused by trucks in the first half of 2013
· 12% – road crashes caused by trucks in 2012
· 7.5% – percentage of the Road Users Tax collected annually that will be allotted for road safety measures
Take note that in this DOTC enumeration, it highlights almost 80 percent of the total road accidents to driver error and 11 percent to defective vehicles. The total number of traffic or road accidents for a given year, say 2013, are not even available even from the DOTC website which is mandated to provide exact and updated information on this matter.
So, just many have died in 2013 due to traffic or road accidents?
Accordingly, 1,833 people were killed and 29,000 were injured in 85,820 traffic and road accidents that occurred in 2011, according to the Highway Patrol Group of the Philippine National Police. And that was in 2011. Scanning from reliable sources, there is no available data of the total traffic and road accidents for 2012 and 2013 and not surprisingly even the recently released WHO report used a 2011 Philippine data for its analysis of the country’s road safety assessment.
Finding speed meter
Here in the city, we have just implemented, observed and practiced the 30-40-60 rule.
In its 2013 global report, WHO states that “only 59 countries, covering just 39% of the world’s population (2.67 billion people), have implemented an urban speed limit of 50 km/h or less and allow local authorities to reduce these limits.”
WHO suggests that setting speed limits according to the designated function of particular roads is an effective measure to reduce road traffic injuries. “A number of countries considered leaders in road safety, such as Australia and Sweden, have adopted universal urban speed limits of 50 km/h, based on the effectiveness of this measure in reducing injuries and deaths. Although well over half of all countries (114) apply this urban speed limit, these countries represent less figure 13 Urban speed laws by country/area than half (47%) of the world’s population.”
Between 2008 and 2011, six countries improved their urban speeding laws, protecting an additional 246 million people, but more effort is needed to encourage governments to adopt maximum urban speed limits of 50 km/h. Pedestrians and cyclists are especially at risk of an injury as a result of excessive vehicle speeds. This vulnerability means particular attention needs to be paid to speed limits in areas with high concentrations of these road users, such as around schools or in residential neighborhoods.
WHO also noticed that traffic calming measures that reduce vehicle speeds in these areas are proven effective in reducing road traffic injuries. For example, introducing 30 km/h zones in residential areas in the UK resulted in overall vehicle speed reductions of 15 km/h and cut vehicle crashes with child pedestrians and cyclists by 67% . However, nearly half of all countries lack enabling legislation that permits local authorities to modify national speed limits, thus limiting the ability of sub-national governments to implement effective road safety measures within their jurisdictions. This is further reflected in the low proportion of countries (37%) that have urban speed limits of 30 km/h or less around schools.
Taken together, this means that just 59 countries both implement national urban speed limits of less than or equal to 50 km/h and allow local authorities to further reduce these limits where
appropriate. These countries represent 2.67 billion people, or just 39% of the world’s population.
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