There were reports that car sales picked up in July. What are our government officials doing about this? Are they not aware that this is exacerbating the traffic congestion problem?
Why don’t we follow the practice of Singapore, which requires a prospective car buyer to purchase from the government a certificate of entitlement, which is available only if a vehicle had been junked or removed from circulation? This means that one vehicle gets out, before one vehicle gets in. In the Philippines, three vehicles should be out, before one vehicle is allowed to get in.
Moreover, private vehicles should be drastically reduced in number by banning vehicles that are 30 years old or older. If traffic congestion continues to be very bad, the phaseout age of vehicles should be reduced to 25, 20 and even 15 years, if need be.
I understand that in Japan, once a vehicle gets to be five years old, car registration becomes very difficult.
But some people will say that we don’t have a good transport system. This should not be a problem, because as the number of private vehicles is substantially reduced, traffic flow will be smoother and faster, and public vehicles can double or triple the number of round trips they make at present. The very long lines of commuters waiting for their ride will disappear. Then, I would be willing to dispose three of my four cars and take the bus to work.
The jeepney modernization program, by the way, is not smart, as it does not require the junking of the old jeepneys that will simply be converted to private vehicles, while 200,000 new jeepneys, more or less, will come in to further adversely
affect the traffic situation.
RENE TORRES,
rentorres@yahoo.com