Road Bullies

Scientists have told us that the only thing that can survive a nuclear attack and still continue breeding are cockroaches. New research, however, led by several hundred thousand motorists, are now willing to bet that the 8-plate and the dreaded wang-wang (annoying siren) can last even longer.

Seriously now. How many more articles need to be written? How many more people need to be run off the road? How many LTO chiefs need to be reappointed? How many laws need to be broken before we can finally abolish this ridiculous privileged plate? Oh, but they will tell us that there is no privilege attached to it. Puhleease… They must really think we have the same IQ as their plate numbers. But let’s just entertain that thought for a moment if for no other reason except to make up a minimum word count on this page.

Objectively speaking, minus the dripping sarcasm, if that is even half true, what other purpose would it serve then? Honestly? It would be no different to bringing a red cloth into a bull’s arena only to have to hire 20 men to protect you. What’s the point? Why not just bring a white one like everyone else?! There was a time, many, many, many years ago, where being given the honor to have a government plate or symbol commanded respect from the public. But now, the only thing it really does is serve as a symbol of hate and identify you as a target for terrorists – something that the government has just had to allocate another 800 million pesos to the PNP to counter.

As of this writing, the PNP has allocated 5,092 specially trained policemen to protect congressmen, governors, mayors, other government officials and (supposedly) private citizens. How many cops do you think we could put back on our streets to protect the taxpayers if they didn’t attract all this attention to themselves with their noisy 5-10 car convoys?

Plus there’s the danger that they subject innocent road users to every time they need to muscle their way past us. How many other ways are there to say, “We’re sick to death of it”? It’s not the plate, per se, but the attitude of those who abuse and hide behind it. If you are entitled to one, don’t you think you should be driving even more responsibly if you really want to be held in higher regard and lift the status of public office? Driving like the road is named after you is the epitome of uncool and is the most effective advertisement for impotence.

Yet some people still don’t get it. Well, let me spell it out for you then. Everyone outside your convoy loathes you. I speak directly to those that have abused the privilege to death, of course, and have tainted the symbol to such a state of despise that now your honest colleagues in the Senate or Congress refuse to use them and people like me are calling for it to be completely dissolved. Basically, you have spoiled it for everyone else.

Now, it’s bad enough when congressmen or other senior ranking government officials use them, but when you find out it is their kids, wives, mistresses, friends and God only knows who else abusing it, it becomes even more abrasive than the roads we drive on.

I have yet to meet a person in this country that has not had an obnoxious encounter with a wang-wang vehicle or those with privileged plates. And now, because our authorities have been castrated over this issue, I’ve noticed more and more garden variety FXs and older sedans using them to get through traffic. Talk about insult over injury; its one thing to get run off the road by GMA herself, it is another thing entirely to be bullied by cars older than the imbeciles driving them. And it will happen more and more.

Regular folks are now fitting illegal sirens under the “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” excuse. Please, I know how you feel, but let’s not fall into that trap. I know I would be flattering myself if I really believed that my voice could make any significant difference – especially considering that the last guy who stood up for us and made a mere suggestion of abolishing the 8 plate got farmed out of the LTO faster than a speeding Suburban and a convoy of primates in Nissan Safaris – but what we can do is band together and create a stigma.

Remain firm. Don’t budge. And certainly don’t stoop down to their level by fighting fire with fire. Just keep the pressure on. Keep talking about it, writing about it, blogging about it, Facebook-status-updating it… whatever. Just keep the message consistent and let’s see if we can eventually embarrass them into giving it up. It’s our only shot really. I mean, seriously, do you really expect to have the law changed or enforced to handicap those that make them in the first place?

Editor’s note. As we were limited on space this week, the article had to be cut short. For more info on this, view the author’s video blog by searching “jdeakin72” on youtube.

Here are a couple of your comments from last week’s “The Jenson and Rubens Show” by Manny de los Reyes…

Reliability and Brand don’t always come in same package! Before the start of the season, Ferrari and BMW teams were my top picks. After few races, it’s really surprising to see new teams and drivers taking the charge instead of the usual suspects of the last two seasons. In case Brawn GP continues to dominate until halfway of the race calendar, Ferrari with their predictable DNF performances should prepare to concede and the message is the same for the “Power of Dreams” – wrong career move! – KERSMcPherson

If Honda hadn’t surrendered the team to Ross Brawn, they would still be the laughing stock of the league. It only is a wise choice for Honda to do so. It’s a win-win situation anyway. Ross finally had his own team, and Honda can channel the unyielding truckloads of cash it spends on F1 to other things like R&D or revenue enhancing programs. With the way today’s economy is playing out, one wrong move can get a giant company heading south in a snap.

As for Ross, he already had proven himself a genius on the Schumi-led Ferrari teams, and now he’s showing the world that he can also handle an F1 team. Look at the sticker-less Brawn cars, man! Brawn is probably the least expensive team in F1! How much can Ross’ pocket shell out, anyway? Oh well, bottomline is, such an amazing Brain that goes with that Brawn...

And yeah, it’s funny that Ferrari still has the nerve to boycott F1 once budget cap is implemented... Just funny... – butterscratch

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