Are jeepneys exempt from seat belt law?

Given the rampant vehicular accidents in our midst and times, there’s one, perhaps yet unprecedented, kind of road mishap that, God forbid, has long been waiting to happen because of the government’s gross negligence in the implementation of the seat belt law. I am imagining somebody suddenly thrown out of a passenger jeep’s front seat, then crushed to death outright by another vehicle in the expressway.

The seat belt law requires all vehicles to have seat belts not only for the driver but also for the passenger directly beside him. Traffic enforcers in the metropolis, as well as in the provinces, are known to be quite strict on this requirement, although apparently only when it comes to privately owned cars and vans. Are passenger jeeps really exempt from this?

As things are, most passenger jeeps are now equipped with the bucket-type, good-for-one, front seats that have been cannibalized from left-over cars. The seats no longer have the obsolete, rectangular extension of the driver’s seat, which then used to accommodate two passengers. It is bad enough that these passenger jeeps are still being allowed to take two passengers in front. I mean, they will never leave the terminal with only one paying commuter beside the driver. Needless to say, this practice is most unsafe in jeeps whose front seats are open; relatively speaking, the practice is not as risky in cars whose doors are closed. That it seems okay for jeeps and not for cars is a mockery of the seat belt law. And worse: it is being allowed with reckless impunity on expressways where, irony of all ironies, the warning “We implement the seat belt law here” is conspicuously posted. Maybe—alas, maybe!—this is one reason passenger jeep drivers are called “kings of the road.”

Could Mar Roxas, the newly installed transportation secretary, please look into this easily correctable, yet most intriguing, abnormality?
—RUDY L. CORONEL,
10 Venus St.,
Golden Country Homes,
Alangilan, Batangas City