When the remedy is worse than the disease

They may have started out with good intentions, but what do you do when the enforcement tactics of a law or ordinance seems to wreak more havoc than the actual infringement?  

I’m talking about enforcement agencies or task forces like the anti-smoke-belching teams, arrogant tow truck operators and those abusive armored truck services that end up outweighing any benefits they claim to have on peace, order or the environment by breaking several laws just to enforce one. 

Take the anti-smoke-belching task forces that position themselves in the most constipated part of the road––usually on the underpass that leads to both Quirino highway and EDSA Pasay-bound. While it may be important to weed out smoke-belching vehicles, trapping thousands of other innocent motorists and creating hours and hours of unnecessary traffic to do so is like calling out the fire department to put out a cigarette. Overkill. 

Besides, the simple act of conducting these ‘random’ checks that seem to never include public busses, jeepneys or known trucking firms, is simply telling us that you didn’t do your job properly the first time during the renewal of registration.  

I have received numerous complaints from private motorists that have passed the emissions test at the LTO accredited testing centers, only to fail the roadside versions just weeks later. These same motorists also complain of ‘extreme testing’ that can cause engine damage, like redlining your vehicle and staying on the gas for an unnecessary amount of time just to be able to force an unfavorable reading. 

Seriously. What are the guidelines here? Who calibrates the machines? To think that in many cases, the vehicles that the enforcers are using are worse than many of those that they fail. Who polices them? And please spare a thought for the environment when you conduct these tests. Just think of the irony of forcing thousands of cars to idle senselessly for hours, burning a massive hole in our ozone layer and millions of pesos of precious fuel, all so you can catch a handful of smoke belching AUVs and delivery vans under the guise of environmental protection. 

I know that they will argue that it is a strategic location and if it was held anywhere else that people would just run. Um, newsflash: that is what bad people do. Get used to it and learn how to give chase. Because that is what law enforcers do. There have been many movies and comic books made about this concept. It’s not new. Really. Much in the same way that firing indiscriminately in a crowded public place to try and shoot one criminal is frowned upon by majority of the human race. Some might call it lazy enforcement. 

Which leads me to the tow trucks. I doubt that there’s any coincidence that the only difference between enforcement and entrapment happens to be a four-letter word. And that is what many of these thugs seem to do. They themselves will park illegally (often blocking the flow of traffic) just so that they can wait for you to park, then pounce on your car once you’ve left, often driving the opposite way down one way streets to do so. 

They are usually arrogant, abrasive, and completely unreasonable––especially when they tow you from in between two ‘jolly jeeps’ because you are obstructing the flow of traffic. Hello? The only thing you could possibly obstruct is their dishwashing area. Because at the risk of pointing out the painfully obvious, what point is there of having a 5-7 pm clearway on a road when you have permanent stainless steel food outlets occupying parking spaces 24/7? 

But the more relevant question here is, aside from the earlier one I posed about breaking laws to enforce one, how can an unroadworthy vehicle with bald tires, no seat belts (or doors in many cases) be allowed to tow you when it shouldn’t be on the road in the first place? Isn’t that like being arrested by an escaped criminal. Or are they above the law? 

And lastly, can somebody please tell our enforcers that an armored car is not immune to traffic laws. Because it seems that as soon as they see these behemoths, they fall into a trance of some sort. I understand that they are afforded some concessions due to the sensitivity and value of their cargo, but what could be more valuable cargo than human life? Because every time an imbecile in five tons of armor runs a red light, that’s what it potentially ends up costing.

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