Editorial - Who's in charge

During the day, two things readily become apparent on the road — people on motorcycles with the wrong helmets or no helmets at all, and people on motorcycles on the wrong side of the road. At night, the thing that strikes you are jeepneys not using headlights.

These three things seem to be very basic road safety concerns. But judging by the frequency with which they are observed, no other conclusion can be derived other than that the authorities are not doing their jobs in relation to these issues.

It goes without saying that the failure to wear helmets or the wearing of the wrong ones is behind most of the fatalities in road accidents. On the other hand, the fact that fewer accidents involve driving on the wrong side of the road is no reason to tolerate this violation.

That there are fewer accidents involving wrong-lane driving can be attributed only to the fact that it is the drivers being challenged by wrong-lane drivers who are forced to give way to prevent accidents.

But must the authorities wait until those on the right side of the road become suicidal themselves and take up the wrong-siders up on the challenge? The authorities better believe that from apathy there will be hell to pay, sooner or later.

And what about the jeepneys that refuse to turn on their headlights at night? The reason for this anomaly is supposedly that headlights temporarily blind potential passengers from seeing the destination signboards on the vehicles.

In other words, the main concern of the drivers is merely to pick up passengers and not the safety of everyone on the road. Clearly there is something wrong in the attitude of these drivers that make them unfit to drive on public roads.

And while we are on the subject of jeepney drivers not feeling any responsibility for the safety of their passengers, how about those who start their vehicles even before their passengers have been properly seated?

All of these problems sadly point to one thing: These drivers do not know or have not understood what their responsibilities are. Maybe they just paid their way to obtain licenses. Maybe they think a license is just a permit to drive, instead of being a badge of responsibility.