Life’s short, don’t rush it

Kudos to the Chair on Transportation Committee of the City Council. Finally, someone who believes that the commuting public deserve drivers who are really professionals and public service oriented.

The good councilor LA has voiced out that there is a need for public utility drivers to pass the Tesda accredited drivers’ proficiency standard. Now that is a very commendable action to weed out public utility drivers who are a menace to the riding public, fellow drivers and pedestrian alike. Maybe now we can really remove drivers who are illiterate, do not know road safety rules and regulation as well as do not know how to react in a dangerous road condition – these are drivers who obtained their licenses through corruption.

As usual, the drivers and operators are against the upgrading of the driving standards citing additional burden for them. This is akin to saying, that they really do not care for the safety of the general public and that this additional expense for them is more valuable than the lives of their passengers. What is wrong with a genuine certificate that certifies a driver as world class, competent and knowledgeable enough to be trusted h the lives of thousands of passengers daily? This will even be a certificate that may be used to get a job abroad.

In one of my visits to Korea, we visited a driving school facility for bus drivers. All bus drivers had to pass their examinations before they are allowed to drive for the public. This is how stringent standards should be if you are to be a public utility driver. The bus drivers had to spend weeks of lecture to gain knowledge on road safety as well as on how to handle all types of driving scenarios that they will encounter. Each driver must be able to demonstrate his/her knowledge and skills by having to drive in simulated accidents in a controlled environment. Yes, there is a huge track for the various scenarios (the whole institution must be more than a hundred hectares).

We, Asean delegates boarded a training bus to experience the simulated dangerous road conditions. We had harrowing experiences of having a bus sliding out of control on a wet surface and then we were barely able to hold on to our seats as they made the bus make a 180 degree spin. Would–be drivers were taught the proper techniques on how to regain control of their buses.

Even private and taxi drivers pay the institution to learn safety driving, car drivers demonstrated to us the importance of seatbelts by accelerating then doing sudden brakes. I would have had a nasty head bump if I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.

All these are done to ensure that the riding public will arrive in their destinations fast and safe. I rode the public buses in Seoul and I felt safer knowing that they have undergone stringent drivers’ education programs designed to minimize road accidents.

Does LTO or LTFRB have these tests to ensure the safety of our riding public? NO.

If the intention of the policy of having additional requirements is to ensure that our commuting public will have a safer trip then why in the world are the PUV drivers and operators against it? Is it about the expenses that they will incur for the tests, another way to look at these expenses would be that these are necessary expenses to ensure that drivers will not have to pay for the hospitalization of his injured passengers in the future –this could run to hundreds of thousand pesos for serious injuries plus the damage to properties – all because the driver does not know how to drive safely.