Oppressed motorists

Before someone comes unhinged in these times of hardship and destroys traffic lights or street CCTVs – or worse, murders traffic management personnel – the national government must require all local government units (LGUs) implementing no-contact apprehension to first make sure all their traffic lights have fully functioning traffic signal countdown timers.

TSCTs display the time remaining for the current stoplight indication: red, yellow or green. Research conducted by the Oregon State University in 2017 showed that the use of TSCT leads to safer responses from drivers.

“The findings are important because of mistakes made in what traffic engineers call the ‘dilemma zone’ – the area in which a driver isn’t sure whether to stop or keep going when the light turns yellow,” an article in the university reported.

There are traffic lights in Metro Manila with the TSCT or at least a crosswalk timer for pedestrians, but the use of the TSCT is still the exception rather than the rule.

To illustrate the impact of the lack of the TSCT, a motorist I know who lives in Parañaque has been taking the long and expensive route, by Skyway, to and from his home for some time now.

The reason: the shorter toll-free route is dotted with traffic lights. And he has already shelled out thousands in fines at city hall and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) for a variety of traffic violations in “dilemma zones” that were caught on CCTV under the city’s no-contact apprehension scheme.

At amounts ranging from P1,500 to P3,000, those 18 violations cost more than the motorist’s one-month salary.

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He’s no reckless driver. But most of the violations are for slowing to a stop even slightly beyond the yellow line designating the intersection box, and for getting caught in a yellow light within the box – the dilemma zone.

For the life of him, the motorist sighs, he can’t anticipate when a green light is about to turn yellow and then red. And he can’t afford to keep wasting his hard-earned pay on what he considers, in the absence of TSCTs, to be arbitrary and unfair enforcement of the rules.

There are, to be sure, many other drivers who share his lament. Even motorcycle riders are fuming; the same fines are imposed, regardless of the vehicle. A security guard in our office had to pay P7,000 for two violations while driving his motorcycle in the city of Manila. That’s a large chunk of his monthly pay.

While it’s good to teach motorists to practice disciplined, courteous, defensive driving, those traffic lights without TSCTs – especially at wide dilemma zones such as the one at the busy junction of Roxas Boulevard and P. Burgos in Rizal Park – are inevitably likened to speed traps, predatory and designed mainly for fund-raising either by city hall or the MMDA.

The system is no better than the so-called kotong or mulcting traffic enforcers. With the cops, at least motorists can negotiate on the spot for a lower fine, or even be let off due to a genuine emergency, and the driver doesn’t have to waste half a day at city hall contesting the penalty.

This kind of fund-raising, especially in a time of skyrocketing fuel prices and high inflation, is oppressive and can only generate public resentment against the government.

The motorist I know, for one, has vowed not to vote for the mayor of his city.

It will be a disaster when more mass transport vehicles return to their routes as in-person classes resume.

Tone-deaf

Even if the provision of TSCTs in traffic lights was simply overlooked for no-contact apprehension schemes, it betrays the kind of slipshod planning that goes into the implementation of projects and programs in government.

We’re seeing this again in the flak that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas is getting over the polymer P1,000 bill. Controversy had dogged that bill from the start, when the BSP decided, mostly on its own, to replace the images of World War II resistance heroes Josefa Llanes Escoda, Vicente Lim and Jose Abad Santos with the Philippine Eagle.

The redesign pushed through anyway, with polymer also replacing our home-produced abaca fiber and cotton blend as the base material ostensibly for a more durable and cleaner banknote.

Polymer may be stronger, but the abaca-cotton blend is more pliable, and therefore more adaptable to the rough handling that banknotes are subjected to in this country.

We don’t know if BSP officials were clueless about the way ordinary Filipinos handle banknotes, or if they wanted to force a sea change in currency handling by the Pinoy hoi polloi.

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The BSP’s initial guidelines last month on the handling of the polymer bill, advising against folding the banknote, led to confusion and then to an avalanche of criticism and ugly jokes about tone-deaf public officials.

For the information of the .001 percent who carry their cash in long wallets or clutch bags (or who have a coterie of alalays to carry their clutch bags and tissue holders), this is how Juan and Juana carry their money:

Banknotes are folded to fit into small wallets that can fit into small purses, or pushed into pants back pockets. The tight pocket space allows the person to immediately detect a pickpocketing attempt. Clutch bags can be snatched, so men avoid using them in crowded streets.

Bills are also rolled up in wads so they can be kept together with the coins needed for fares and sales transactions in wet markets and other cash-only establishments, and there are still many of them all over the country. Even the wholesale shops in Divisoria as well as the bargain centers in Dapitan and Dangwa flower market accept only cash.

Jeepney drivers and bus conductors fold banknotes lengthwise and then put the money between their fingers, where the bills are further bended in the middle, for speedier exchange of cash with passengers.

So you can understand why Pinoys are now suggesting that the polymer P1,000 bill be framed instead of being used as legal tender, and can we all just go back to paper money?

These ill-conceived projects that impose unnecessary burdens make the public believe that there are too many people in government who are just twiddling their thumbs and need to be relieved of their employment.