Run for your life!

threatening behavior of drivers in our cities. While the drivers may be the actual law-breakers who should be penalized, their employers, who should know better, are unapologetic consenting coconspirators, who ought to be penalized several times more. If there is no existing “command responsibility law” applicable in this particular situation, it’s about time our legislators enacted one to prevent more deaths and injuries.

Why should crossing the street on the designated lanes be risky at all? Weren’t they so designed to protect the pedestrians? Why should the citizens be in constant fear and have to run for their life every time they cross the streets? And sadly, some police officers on site simply don’t care!

In more disciplined countries where laws are strictly enforced and respected, like Singapore, Japan, the United States, Dubai, and others, vehicles start to slow down (with no police officer around) when they are about 50 feet from the crossing lane and then fully stop about 10 feet from the lane when drivers see a person wanting (not even starting yet) to cross, and do not try to outrun the pedestrians as they do in Metro Manila. As long as there is even a single pedestrian on that safety lane, no car would be passing in front or at the back of that person. The pedestrian has the right to change his/her mind 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. These 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 American-owned 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 Metro Manila can be modified, IF (and only IF) our city mayors, chiefs of police, MMDA, 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