Here and There

By Gerry Garcia

EXPANSION of the city proper area, once promised by the city administration to help ease traffic congestion, has been unduly delayed to the consternation of commuters and motorists flocking in daily, especially from outside the city. Congestion on the city’s streets certainly has not eased a bit owing to the presence of 3 big universities and 3 major shopping malls. . . . all hogging the city’s most traffic-prone areas.

Original plans, if we remember right, included the construction of two new bridges across the long winding Pantal River, one of which would link Bacayao Norte to Rivera street (?) and the other to connect Bacayao Sur to Zamora. These were all projects needing prior implementation by the LGU which originally hatched the idea.

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In the meantime, the problem that should be bugging our LTO authorities now is how to prevent our streets from bursting at the seams. We have too many trikes and bikes on the road adding to probably an equal number of kolorum passenger jeepney and buses.

At the same time our LTO had better line up other measures  to rein in reckless trike drivers forever zooming in and out of lane and creating chaos . . . by designating, for instance, the outmost lane for their exclusive use. This will at least do something to keep our 3-wheeled box matches from unduly commandeering the little space available between two cars going in the same direction. This is what they call abroad, abuse of tail-gating.

Tail-gating law, we’re told (correctly, we hope), requires one moving car to allow car-length space between itself and the other car ahead of it . . . to avoid sudden impending collision.

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There is a move today in Metro Manila, we heard, to implement the so-called tail-gating law. How this is possible of implementation in traffic -infested Manila is beyond us.

But here in Dagupan City, we know the enforcement of such a law will come to naught, meaning, nothing. Tail-gating, if practised here, would worsen, not prevent, congestion on the road, especially given the lusot mentality not only of trike drivers but also of all other jeepney drivers in the city.

It’s no secret to us flabbergasted private motorists that the car-length empty space we generously allow between our car and the other car ahead . . . could be a tempting invitation for usurpation of the  space by reckless trike or jeepney drivers who are often of the no-read no-write variety.

The tail-gating  law, presumably originated  by and intended  only for First World nations on wheel, like USA and UK…  is  certainly not advisable for sad sack Republics like Pinoyland where the roads are few . . . and narrower than the minds of some officials and the number of road-users is overwhelming.

That’s why to most of us Pinoys  “tail-gating” is as useless to us as Greek and “Yield”, ubiquitous traffic sign in America, is meaningless.

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