EDITORIAL - Safety often takes the back seat

The reason Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña wants City Hall to take over the services of Angkas, an app-based motorcycle taxi service, is two-pronged. It helps commuters to beat traffic since motorcycles can easily pass through gridlocks. And there is a clamor for the service. Osmeña is unperturbed by the fact that Angkas lacks a franchise and is therefore illegal. Maybe the mayor thinks taking over the service can make it so.

Be that as it may, that is something that will have to be dealt with at a later time. What needs to be discussed are the two main points raised by Osmeña that makes him eager to take over the service. First the ability of motorcycles to weave in and out of traffic. Such logic takes away all sense of safety. Instead of, say, proposing legislation that specifies a dedicated lane for motorcycles like they do in other, more disciplined countries, Osmeña is actually proposing the opposite.

Since the mayor has always exhibited a strong interest in traffic, surely he could not have been oblivious to the fact that motorcycle accidents rank very high in any statistics on road incidents. Surely he is very aware of the recklessness of many motorcycle drivers, of how they, yes, weave in and out of traffic, or drive against the flow of traffic, or wear no helmets and carry very young children contrary to the law.

But Osmeña often marches to the beat of a different drummer. He has his own ideas of what the law should be, even if he does not have the authority to enact them. Like when he wanted to exempt schoolchildren in the mountain barangays from the application of the law, for no other reason than that he does not want them to be late for school, motorcycles being their main means of transportation. On the issue of safety versus punctuality, Osmeña made his choice.

As to the clamor of people to keep Angkas after the LTFRB started cracking down on the service for want of a franchise, that is something that only Osmeña knows since he has not produced a list of actual people doing the clamoring. After all, it is so easy to make a claim, or invoke the name of the people when making such a claim. That is what politicians are very good at.

But even if the clamor is true, it does not follow that the leader of a community is required to give in to that clamor. Wise decisions are not a popularity contest but deeply thought out ones. Osmeña cannot ignore the bigger picture here. The mayor is faced with another choice, safety versus convenience. To most people, it is a no-brainer. But let us see what happens. An utter failure to solve traffic can make an easy way out very tempting.