Why not a National Traffic Authority?

We all know, worry, complain and argue about how our traffic affairs are being managed in Metro Manila; maybe sometimes to the extent of being overmanaged with the various agencies that are involved, including national agencies and their local government counterparts.

The same is true in most major cities nationwide, with their own traffic and public safety teams. But who manages the in-betweens, the long expanse of roads and highways that connect all these urban areas? Who oversees road discipline and safety nationwide? Also, who integrates and rationalizes traffic rules to make them seamless nationally; and, more importantly, which agency does this strategically on a national level and indeed formulate and present a cohesive national traffic masterplan?

While we now find ourselves in this pandemic and with the sudden interest in domestic travel during these times, maybe it is a good time to think about a national effort to consolidate all traffic concerns under one national agency—maybe a National Traffic Authority, to properly address these “in-betweens” and come out with a seamless and

wholistic approach to traffic management nationally.

We realize this when we step out of our urban boundaries and drive through the expanse of our highways that connect our towns and cities. Here we find tricycles lording it over the middle lane of our highways despite Department of the Interior and Local Government’s standing order that local executives must strictly implement the ban on tricycles, pedicabs and motorized pedicabs on national highways (though I believe that tricycle use of these roads can be regulated but not banned); where riding motorcycles with no helmets seem to be the norm; or with road expansions that the government spent hundreds of millions being used either for parking or for drying palay.

Not that I do not commiserate with our farmers who lack the proper area to dry their produce, but that can be addressed in another way. We also begin to understand the incongruity of our laws when we enter a city or a town that has its own rules. Logistics and bus companies have their shared experiences of this problem when some towns they are passing through require them to secure permits to enter their areas, which means they don’t honor nationally secured documentation.

Right now, we have no central traffic authority, but the vestiges of such are found in several government agencies. We have the Land Transportation Office that has jurisdiction over all vehicle concerns such as roadworthiness, registration, etc. We have the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority that takes care of traffic management but only in Metro Manila. We have the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board for regulatory concerns of all public transport. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), in a way, is responsible for all roads to include road signages and road safety devices. And we have the PNP Highway Patrol Group whose jurisdiction covers the entire country but is limited in its resources and focuses more on transport’s criminal aspects. Then we have the multitudes of local government units (LGU) enforcement groups that have their own set of rules that are not always necessarily in line with generally accepted traffic guidelines.

It is high time for us to have a national traffic authority that will address these key issues. This national traffic authority will be responsible for formulating, enforcing and coordinating a cohesive national traffic master plan that will bind all local government units but without necessarily encroaching on their authoritative independence.

Such a traffic authority will also be the repository of relevant data such as traffic violations, which is a pre-requisite for a uniformed ticketing system. A traffic authority can also be the vehicle of a national traffic training institute where all enforcers—national and local—can be trained and given the necessary capacity building tools to be of better service on the road. Road safety and vehicle roadworthiness will be greatly assured with such an entity in place.

This proposed National Traffic Authority can be housed in any of these executive departments—the Department of Transportation, DPWH or the LGUS. And creating such an entity will not entail major amendments to the present regulatory set-ups of existing agencies nor will there be a need to water down any of their present functions. A national traffic authority will simply handle traffic, on a national level; something that we need now, if we don’t realize it yet.