Damn Drivers
Posted by jbdeveza on May 22, 2008
I have been told many times that you can find the worst drivers in the country in our very own Cagayan de Oro City. Traffic rules are among the simplest rules. Yet many of the drivers here, I am inclined to believe, are blissfully unaware of the existence of such rules.
Forget defensive driving, there are no defensive drivers here, just patsies. Just stand in any of the city’s street corners and observe—I am sure that one of the first things you’ll notice is how aggressive everyone is. Here bigger is always better.
The chaos in our streets is telling. Traffic rules are among the simplest to follow. People do not need degrees in molecular biology or applied chemistry to know that red means stop, yellow means pause, green means go. Common sense tells us to keep intersections open to traffic, just as it tells us to signal before turning and to respect other people’s right to the road. And yet very few bear this in mind.
But why should we care? We break the rules and what happens? Absolutely nothing ninety nine percent of the time. Which is why we drive the way we do because there really is no terrible consequence if and when we drive recklessly and with abandon. More often than not, there are no policemen waiting, lurking in the corner. Oh traffic enforcers may be guarding an intersection one day. But the odds that they will be there tomorrow are 50-50 at best. So people break the traffic rules because there never is any certainty of being caught.
Also, we should care because, as we probably all know, one of the prerequisites of a good city is order. There is a reason why there is no peace without order. Order makes everything easier. There is safety in order. Order allows us to proceed to doing things of more import. Order makes living with strangers bearable. We are, afterall, just a couple of hundred thousand strangers living together, breathing the same air, using the same roads.
