EDITORIAL – About time for new motorbike law

Many parents are complaining about the new law, Republic Act 10666, or the Children’s Safety on Motorcycles Act of 2015, that President Aquino signed only last week. The main thrust of their complaint is that they would now find it difficult to bring their children to school. Admittedly, motorcycles did provide parents a fast, convenient, and fuel-efficient means of bringing their children to school.

But the law was not created arbitrarily. It was not crafted to make the lives of parents difficult and miserable. It was not meant to make education a hassle. There is a valid reason for the law and it deals with the safety of children being taken to school, or anywhere else for that matter, on motorbikes. Between the safety of children and a fast, convenient, and fuel-efficient way of taking them to school or anywhere, the choice should be pretty obvious to responsible parents.

But since many parents have complained, maybe it is time to ask them squarely whether they themselves have not contributed, or were not in fact the main reason why such a law was made in the first place. Maybe it is time to ask parents squarely whether or not, by their own acts, they have not provoked well-meaning lawmakers into making a law that is specifically designed to protect children placed into situations of great risk by their own parents.

Even without asking anyone, any casual roadside observation will readily show how many motorcycle drivers with children on board can drive recklessly, often in violation of traffic rules and road courtesy such as cutting lanes and cutting off other motorists, overtaking from the right, driving against traffic on the wrong lanes or counterflowing, driving children without helmets.

In other words, no such law would probably have been made had not motorcycle riders, the complaining parents among them, provoked government to take matters into its own hands in the interest of safety for the riding public. Motorcycle riders had it coming for them. Had they been safety-conscious, law-abiding, courteous – there would have been no need for this new law, one of whose unintended effects is, indeed, greater difficulty now in bringing children to school.

All may not be entirely lost for the complaining motorcycle drivers. If they have one thing going for them, it is the fact that the government is notoriously lax and negligent in the enforcement of laws. Just look at the helmet law. True enough most motorcycle riders now wear helmets because of the law, but look at many of the helmets they wear. There is an outrageous assortment of headgear being worn to pass off as helmets that it would not be a surprise if one wore a bishop's miter.

Aside from the laxity and negligence in enforcing laws, government men are also pretty scarce when it comes to strict implementation of rules. Catching law violators has become like the roll of the dice. Tough luck for those who happen to cross paths with an enforcer having a bad day. Most often, though, enforcers are not where they are supposed to be, thus emboldening motorcycle riders to violate every rule on the assumption they can get away with it. And often they assumed right.