Drivers: ‘righteous’ vs ‘stupid’
We, the righteous drivers believe that only we, not the stupid drivers, have a right to be heard. Recently, when Senator Vicente C. Sotto III ranted about stupid drivers, he instantly found common currency with a majority of drivers, all of whom believe that all the other drivers who break the law, worsen traffic and cause accidents are “stupid.” Since many seem to agree with this conjecture, Sen. Sotto’s proposed solutions — taking the driver’s test again, replacement of the exams and “stricter” enforcement of getting a license — got us to think that if indeed 90% of our drivers are stupid (or do stupid things, which is different from being just plain stupid), we cannot dismiss the Senator’s and many non-stupid drivers’ backwards analysis that the stupid drivers got their licenses through some illegal shortcut. Hence, the need for an across-the-board exams retake for every driver should ferret out the Kosher from the fakes.
Hypocrisy aside, let us call the not- so- stupid drivers (who usually call all other drivers stupid) as the “righteous,” (as opposed to just being plain “right”) drivers. Now picture this: A newish private car. Nice and neat. Holiday mood. Long drive. Journey through EDSA to NLEx, SCTEx then Subic. Then back. Start at EDSA.
EDSA, as usual, is heavily trafficked because of capacity excess volume, which affects both stupid and righteous drivers. Now, heavy traffic threatens to ruin righteous driver’s allocated journey time and is now under pressure to get ahead of the stupid drivers causing the jams. He (it’s usually a he) now engages Beast Mode. Cut and revenge cut. Close in to lead cars to prevent merging traffic or Beast Mode “serial lane grabbing.” Shut off any space for alternate merging. The mentality for the moment is survival of the meanest, dog-eat-dog, pistols drawn. Both stupid and righteous drivers descend into a free-for-all catfight, always a given when traffic turns bad. Laws are broken with impunity because no one is looking.
Finally, it’s all over. Got away with nary a scratch and it’s time to relax on smooth, open roads, like NLEx.
On the NLEx, righteous drivers distinguish themselves into two kinds. Type One, who is now over Beast Mode, having cleared the moral driving hell called EDSA, settles to a law-abiding 99kph on the overtaking lane, or on any lane nearest the median. Faster drivers come up behind and tailgate as Type One driver refuses to yield the fast lane, smugly arrogant, unassailably lawful in abiding the national speed limit. Faster drivers try to overtake on the right, but Type One driver refuses to cede his assumed ownership of the fast lane. A tense race develops, and tempers are primed. Road rage is not far behind.
Then you also have driver Type Two. Having cleared EDSA, he is hell-bent on making up for lost time. But he is stymied by all those stupid drivers, doing 99kph, who refuse to yield the fast lane and return to the right. So Type Two resorts to Beast Mode and begins passing stupid drivers on the right lane. As always, overtaking lane hog stupid driver’s ego cannot take the “disrespect” of the “stupid” driver passing on the right and refuses to yield the fast lane by “racing” Type Two driver. Then Type Two driver now engages and accelerates, overtakes and cuts off stupid driver. Type Two then builds up a good lead but ends up hogging the fast lane at a comfortable 140kph.
Unaware Type Two driver and his now sacrosanct “right of way” of the fast lane are single headlights, fast approaching his tail. These are the sport bike riders of Club 200 ( motorcyclists who do 200kph for breakfast) and their headlights are on, as required by law, and not to intimidate stupid drivers who hog the fast lane at 120kph.
Now this motley crowd of Type One and Type Two righteous drivers and an undetermined number of stupid drivers continue this behavior well into SCTEx. As they arrive at Subic proper, they prepare to get into the correct lane and become alert to eagle-eyed traffic marshals. And just watch them stop at every hexagonal stop sign and yield at every inverted triangle. Watch them adhere to 39kph once they spot the 40kph posted speed limit.
Guess what? Without a doubt the two types of righteous drivers would have easily scored perfect marks on the official driving exam. Ditto for the rudimentary practical exam if they were even given it — the whole nine yards of it. And, as sure as the sun sets in the afternoon, the same righteous drivers will do just as well in any exam retake, barring the onset of Alzheimer’s. Getting all the driver exam questions right doesn’t mean one won’t violate any of them given another time and place.
So there is a clamor for tougher exams, as if this was the silver bullet to slay the beast called stupid drivers? How much tougher do you need the written exam to be? As it is, it is customer-convenient to keep accomplishment of the exam no longer than the standard school test of between 10 and 20 minutes for those conversant with English (Tagalog, even to those who consider it a primary language, always takes longer to read). Maybe the LTO should allow one to take the written exam online, 24/7, and show up at the licensing agency with your graded results. Of course validity of your actually having taken the exam will need to be verified.
It’s the practical exam that can be made tougher, encompassing more driving situations that tests more driving skills, maybe taken in several stages. In Germany, student driver testing even requires a top-speed run on an autobahn to check on distance-calculating skills, braking distance judgment, and overtaking prowess. This is where pretend or substitute exam-takers could prove to be a thriving but corrupt business.