Run for your life!

and suddenly turn around and go back without being hit by a car behind her. only when the entire crossing lane is totally empty would any car move. Pedestrians in those countries are respected and protected and not terrorized like pedestrians in metro manila and other cities in the Philippines.

t hese same drivers, who blatantly violate the laws in the city with brazen decorum, somehow become transformed into model law-abiding drivers when they enter the formerly Americanowned Clark field subic Airbase.

Why? Because they knew that traffic rules there are strictly enforced and violators severely penalized. But the moment they get out of the compound, they resume their usual recklessness with impunity…because they know they would get away with it.

It is therefore clear that the behavior of drivers in m etro manila can be modified, If (and only If) our city mayors, chiefs of police, mm DA, and other related agencies are themselves disciplined enough to enforce the laws.

Just one well-publicized story (highlighted in all news and social media around the country) about a drastic penalty levied against a violator driver and heavier yet against the employee/owner of the car (under a new law) for not stopping properly at crossing lanes would surely be noticed nationwide and serve as a good warning and deterrent to future violators. Behavioral modification through legal enforcement and application of heavy penalties on the offenders have been proven to be effective. obviously, the initiative must start from the top, with the mayors, where the buck stops!

Part of Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of h uman r ights is the right to personal security. t he Presidential Decree of 1959 (1984), an amendment of the Land transportation traffic Code of 1964, obliges motorists to give way to pedestrians in pedestrians lanes or “Zebra Lanes.”

If law enforcement is not executed properly, it is the mayor’s fault (doctrine of command responsibility). And the culpability is self-evident. the thousands of dangerous ongoing breaches of laws and ordinances are glaring evidence in themselves which the mayors cannot refute.

I challenge the people of m etro m anila to be proactive and preemptive and not wait for another 57,000 individuals to be killed by reckless drivers (and