Safety on the Road

Recently, one of the buses of Don Mariano Transit figured in an accident where it is reported that 18 people died (see photo below).

Photo Credit: Manila Bulletin, December 16, 2013 by Michael Varcas

The attention of everyone, especially our government officials, is most earnestly called towards past proposals, suggestions, recommendations, encouragement, admonitions, for making transport safety a key concern of the public sector.

At this time, whether or not the Philippine Government under Pres. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino the 3rd will listen to all these unsolicited advice will be the determinant of the future of public safety on the streets of the country, sea and ocean lanes, and the Philippine air ways.

One of the hundreds of proposals on transport safety became a certified legislation of the Ramos Administration in 1994-1995. It was an executive order draft that instead was forwarded with strong endorsement by former President Fidel V. Ramos to the two houses of Congress to be made into Law due to the inclusion of a component providing for changes in users' fees and charges in the transportation industry.

Because Congress holds the power of the purse and is the only one mandated to create taxes, fees and charges that will be levied upon the public, Congress was the last stop of the proposal for transport safety. Under the late Pres. Corazon Aquino, the same proposal was submitted to Malacanang because of the need for a Philippine council on Safety - or any kind of agency concerned with Safety in general.

If we look at our Philippine Government's structure, there is a myriad of government units, offices, bureaus on safety. From the Department of Labor, Health, National Defense, Transportation and Communications, and the list goes on and on. Despite this however, or because of too many duplicating functions, there is a seeming confusion as to who will be responsible for this and that concern on Safety.

Hundreds of world, international, regional Conventions, conferences and Workshops are held all over the the globe on Safety. The United Nations, cognizant of the value and importance of the universal concern of Safety, has elevated its status consistently from low to a very high Category under the UN Structure.

Therefore a single agency, unifying at least a wide array of safety concerns and lessening the duplication and conflicts of functions of too many agencies under the bureaucracy was proposed.

Out of these proposals, at least one was favored to become law: the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) Act that came about due to the strong wording by Malacanang stating that the proposed law was part of its certified legislative agenda for the period. More > >

Themes: Safety, Transportation, United Nations

Advocacy articles on transport safety past by title and tagline:

Open Letter to Philippine President on Transport Safety

Resource Recovery Movement: tagline tansport, Boncodin

Archangel blog: tagline transport safety, Emilia Boncodin

Rhea Elizabeth Lou blog: tag safety, former Sec. Boncodin

Speeding and Bad Road Structure

Yahoo: CCTV shows Don Mariano Transit speeding before tragedy

From yahoo.com, a video shows that the killer bus owned by the Don Mariano Transit that took 18 lives of its passengers was on a speeding frenzy prior to the accident, the report says.

The authorities reviewing the video say the bus was running at more than 100 kilometers per hour while at the point of the accident the speed limit was only 80 kilometers per hour.

Bad road design and structure in RP

A comment by "A Yahoo User" on the video sourced from ANC, says thus:

if one where to look closely at the footage, one can see that there was water in the path of the bus. What does this mean? I believe that the swerving may be the cause of hydroplaning.that and the speed of the bus i believe could be the main causes of the bus falling

By design, the coupling of speeding vehicles and bad road designs and structures that are common in poor or developing countries are a mortal combination. Compounded with dilapidated vehicle features and parts - that as claimed by the Skyway administration was evident in the Don Mariano Transit bus unit's totally bald tires with treads wholly worn away - the accident was bound to happen.

In the face of burgeoning mishaps not only in the Metro Manila but in other areas of the country due to accidents like the Don Mariano Transit bus' plunge into the netherworld, government must be concerned not only with the implementation of laws, rules and regulations similar to the Congress-Senate approved National Transportation Safety Board Act but also the strictness of parameters for approving and performance-assessing the quality of the country's road network.

As our advocacy has pointed out in the past, in Tokyo, Japan, it was observed that a speeding car in a heavy downpour of rain at night, in a toll bridge, appeared to be travelling on almost dry road that was clear even to the average eye aided by vehicle lights. This is reportedly due to the fact that the structure of Tokyo's roads is characterized by multiple layers.

What is seen at the surface is only the topmost layer of the road structure. Beneath that top layer are sub-layers that are punctured with holes that gradually increase in size as the layer goes father down. At the bottom-most part of these layers water is presumably collected and diverted into pipes that go directly to storm drains.

Privatizing road network construction

Jailing bad regulators

In the Philippines, to build this kind of road would almost be an impossibility, unless road construction, like in Japan, is mostly given over to private companies who then in turn will just collect tolls from the users to be able to recover their investments. More  >  >