Private motorists target victims of ‘kotong’ traffic enforcers

Metro Manila traffic enforcers had a field day apprehending private motorists for real or imagined violations of the newly minted Anti-Distracted Driving Act on its first day of effectivity, May 18.

Even on mere suspicion, they flagged down vehicles just to check their dashboards for anything—e.g., dash cam, cell phone or GPS device—that could “obstruct the driver’s line of vision.” Police checkpoints have been less intrusive.

But quite conspicuous, too, was the total lack of attention given to bus and jeepney drivers violating the most basic traffic rules and regulations just about anywhere they happened to be. There simply seems to be no more hope of relief from the living hell that road travel in Metro Manila has become on account of their never-ending recklessness.

Their nasty habit of parking side by side to pick up or wait for passengers, at almost every corner or in the middle of the road, is still a common cause for cursing by those who cannot understand why traffic enforcers continue to play dumb and blind to such brazen disregard of traffic rules. One cannot help damning the well-entrenched syndicate that has made bus and jeepney drivers feel exempt from any form of discipline.

Indeed, while everyone appreciates strict measures to ensure public safety on the road, selective enforcement makes the measures so unpalatable. We can only wish those traffic enforcers, now so eager and enthused to enforce the new driving restrictions, can show half as much determination in dealing with the blatant lawlessness of bus and jeepney drivers.

Take the jeepney drivers who never turn on their headlights at night, thereby putting other motorists and pedestrians at risk. If traffic rules as basic and simple as that have become useless, these new campaigns to enforce the hi-tech requirements of the Clean Air Act or the Anti-Distracted Driving Act are bound to go the way of ningas cogon.

The bottom line is, as long as traffic enforcers keep looking the other way on the rampant violations of bus and jeepney drivers, all other so-called initiatives to instill discipline on the road can only be perceived as just sinister schemes to exact more and higher “kotong” from private motorists.

ROSE ANNE BARTOLOME,
[email protected]