Road mishaps blamed on squabbling in government

MANILA, Philippines -  A private think tank has blamed the absence of a national road safety masterplan and non-coordination among government agencies for the surfeit of accidents, even as it called for the codification of all road traffic laws.

“There is no overall strategy. There is no purposive collaboration. These agencies neither cooperate nor coordinate with each other in implementing their respective plans and programs on road safety,” according to Forensic Law and Policy Strategies Inc., headed by former Justice Secretary Alberto Agra.

Forensic pointed out that local government units and nine government agencies are all involved in ensuring safety in the country’s streets.

These are the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), Land Transportation Office (LTO), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Philippine National Police-Traffic Management Group (PNP-TMG), Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Health (DOH), and Department of Education (DepEd).

The think tank said the first step in ensuring road safety and crafting a national road safety program is for the Aquino administration to identify the lead agency that would spearhead these efforts.

Rather than create a new office, this would-be lead agency or committee could come from one of several government agencies involved in road safety, or be composed of representatives from these bodies and the transport groups, academe and other concerned sectors, the Forensic study said.

It suggested that in crafting a road safety strategy, the lead agency should “incorporate road traffic injury prevention into a broad range of related activities, such as the construction and maintenance of road infrastructure, a requirement for roadworthiness of vehicles, law enforcement, urban planning and development, effective driver education, and access to health and hospital services.”

The think tank also stressed the need for Congress to codify all road traffic laws to avoid overlapping mandates and conflicts in policy and implementation. It noted that of the almost 40 laws on road safety, only one was intended to identify a national transport strategy.

Forensic said the codification of all road traffic laws should cover classification of roads based on use, determining speed limit, design features, night visibility, access restrictions and area-wide road safety management for each classification, incorporating long-term land use, transport planning and road design; prohibiting street children, vendors, and others from soliciting on roads, and clearing all sidewalks of vendors; requiring stronger driver’s licensing control and driver improvement programs; creating networks of segregated or separate pedestrian and bicycle routes connecting to a public transport system; and keeping roadsides clear of trees, boulders, commercial advertisements and other obstructions, especially on roads where vehicles travel at high speeds.

It said the lack of strategy and coordination among the nine agencies involved in road safety is the reason why the Philippines does not have a reliable database that it can use to craft an effective national road safety plan. 

An Asian Development Bank (ADB) study earlier noted that this has left the Philippines with no choice but to adopt a trial-and-error method in solving traffic problems.

Only the DPWH, MMDA, PNP-TMG and DOH collect traffic data by their own means and methods, with little or no coordination and no effort at all to consolidate the information they have gathered, the Forensic report added.