RA 9262 - Road Decongestant?

Many times as we travel these increasingly congested roads of the city, we are often greeted with the sight of a moped driver with a helmetless child passenger.  Sometimes the child passenger is seated or standing in front of the nitwit with a license.  Other times the child is seated behind the dimwit driver holding on to dear life.  If the scooter has somehow been transformed to accommodate the three-ring circus family, you would have a child or two sandwiched between the parents with a toddler doing a balancing act as he or she is being made to stand upright on the thigh of the mother and held only by one hand.

It is bad enough that this is a blatant violation of the helmet law.  What makes it worse is the fact that traffic enforcers totally ignore this scenario and care not for the welfare of the child.  I have yet to see a traffic cop flag down such an offender.  Did common sense stop when the helmet law made no specific mention of children?  Many may argue that it is hard enough to find child-sized helmets in many of the myopic-minded scooter stores that litter the city, what more for toddler-sized helmets.  Well, here’s a logical answer, keep the toddlers at home. 

Subjecting children to these dangerous conditions should be something our soon-to-be-chosen leaders must look into.  There is a republic act entitled "Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004" or R.A. 9262 which exist to protect women and children from, as the title suggests, scenarios that put their lives in danger.  I had once thought that Section 5 of that act should cover that kind of violation.  Section 5 states that, “The crime of violence against women and their children is committed through any of the following acts: (a) Causing physical harm to the woman or her child; (b) Threatening to cause the woman or her child physical harm; (c) Attempting to cause the woman or her child physical harm; (d) Placing the woman or her child in fear of imminent physical harm;”

 Apparently, driving around with a helmetless child passenger is not covered by this act since we still see drones of violators plying the streets.  If it was covered by the said act, all barangay officials and traffic enforcers would be guilty of violating Section 30-g of the act, which states, ”Barangay officials and law enforcers shall have the following duties(g) arrest the suspected perpetrator without a warrant when any of the acts of violence defined by this Act is occurring, or when he/she has personal knowledge that any act of abuse has just been committed, and there is imminent danger to the life or limb of the victim as defined in this Act.”  I guess the fact that they will only get a slap on the wrist and fined no more than ten thousand pesos for not doing their job is not a big deal for them.

As we are slowly turning into a less populated Mumbai, with scooters and mopeds crowding the streets by the thousands, it is getting harder and harder to find road space to avoid hitting the many reckless two-wheel daredevils who have this delusion of invincibility.  It is bad enough that, on their own, they nip our side mirrors, crash and hurriedly scamper away from the scene of the crime.  Nipping our side mirror, crashing with helmetless children and blaming us for causing brain damage to their kids is worse. 

They caused the brain damage to begin with.  They made their children dumb enough to believe that riding around town violating the helmet law is a good thing.  Another is letting their children believe that their heads are made of tougher material than the helmets marked with ICC sticker.  Well, that part is possibly true.  Have you noticed how flimsy these so-called “standard” helmets are?

If driving a moped with helmetless children isn’t covered by this republic act, it is high time someone amended the law to cover it.  These people should be held responsible for neglecting the safety of their children.

The helmet doesn’t just protect the child’s head in the event of an impact.  Have these brainless nitwits ever realized that we live in a tropical country and the sun bakes almost anything you leave out for more than five minutes?  Or did that same sun bake the brains of the law enforcers too?