Election Time

I don’t know about my fellow Backseat Driver contributors, but I dread these columns. Every time the dashing Dong Magsajo fires off that text message of "Bro, you’re next week’s Backseat Driver" and follows that one up with daily reminders, I’m always at a loss for words, although you might never know it because all I ever reply to him is either "Yup!" or "Okay!" (Hey, he likes confident writers…) Sometimes, I pick up something truly interesting to talk about like bothersome billboards or the never-ending tirade against the MMDA/public utility drivers/the LTO, but more often than not I get the feeling I’m beating a dead horse.

So there I was in my car last Friday morning along C-5 in Pasig, driving to work while pondering my deadline when traffic literally came to a standstill and gave me my fodder for this week’s column. For twenty minutes, vehicles going north or south had the great fortune to add twenty minutes to their driving time, as they sat absolutely still while a political campaign kicked off on that road. Campaign season had begun, and we were right smack in the middle of it. So I fumed, I honked the horn, and I made a mental note NOT to vote for all those politicians who were making myself and hundreds of other motorists late for their appointments.

In fairness, who was I to know if those campaigners actually had something meaningful to contribute to their constituents on the basis of their traffic-delaying parade, but I really needed to go to the bathroom too, you know. Politics must be genuinely hard work, I think. You consume so much energy getting into office, and then spend a lot more staying in there, telling the people and yourself that you’re actually doing everyone a service. I wouldn’t want to do that, no sir. I don’t have the heart or the thick skin for politics. But suppose I ran for office? Naturally, I’d base my platform on motoring. Most of it would look silly to non-drivers, but I bet it would work in practice. Here’s what my politically-incorrect plan would look like, crafted inside my car that Friday morning:

Electrified Island Fences. Don’t you just hate jaywalkers? There you are cruising at 80 on the C-5 and zoom goes this pedestrian who can’t be troubled to use the overpass just 50 meters away. My fences won’t kill jaywalkers, of course. Just stun them enough to jolt them back to a safer way of crossing the road. Positive Inducement: Bottomless iced tea and free Holy Kettle Corn in the overpasses!

Racing School. Henceforth, any new driver’s license applicant MUST enroll in a "crash course" competition course such as the Tuason Racing School (No, JP is not paying me for this). Racing school will do better at curbing one’s hotshoe tendencies than a cut-and-dried basic driving course. Just ask any hotshot who’s plowed into the weeds on Turn 1 at the Batangas Racing Circuit. A racing course will make anyone a better (and far safer) driver, guaranteed. Mandatory modules would include 5-second U-turns, Jackrabbit Green Light Accelerations, and Texting While Apex-Clipping.

The Billboard Bond. Notice that the sky-high billboards are back? With this plan, billboard owners and advertisers must put up a bond equal to P1M for every 10 feet in height of the billboard. It’ll be paid to the party of anyone who gets killed by a falling billboard. Now you won’t mind getting killed, the advertising business hums along, and the billboard operators get to put up as many as they can afford.

Ban Motorcycle Helmets. Yes, I said BAN them. Motorcycle helmets seem to give oafish riders a heightened sense of invulnerability on the road, zipping in and out of lanes, clipping hapless pedestrians, and annoying thousands of etiquette-practicing motorists. Remove the helmet and chances are they’ll learn to ride more safely; their lives will depend on it! Plus, they’ll be more comfortable too.

Bus Driver Collars. In the Japanese movie Battle Royale, high school students were put on an island to kill each other off, and if they didn’t, collars ‘round their necks would explode anyway. This is my solution to all those reckless bus drivers who’ve cut you off or hit your car in the past. The next time a bus grazes your car (or even a near-miss), you dial a number at the back of the bus next to that useless "How Is My Driving?" sticker, triggering the driver’s collar to activate. No, it won’t kill him, since then you’d have a problem stopping an out-of-control bus (as if it was in control in the first place…). Instead, it will constrict his breathing, choking the life out of him until he simply has to come to a full stop so the collar will expand once more. But if he tries to remove it, then it will really explode.

Armor Protection Subsidies. If you can prove that you work in a business where you have a high probability of getting killed, kidnapped, or held up, you get a big discount on armor packages for your car whether it’s a Jazz or a Suburban. Not only that, freebies include your very own M-16, a box of ammo, and a year’s subscription to Soldier of Fortune. Not as prestigious as having your own squad of bodyguards, but we all have to start somewhere.

The Unified Vehicle Segregation Scheme. The "number" coding scheme doesn’t work. Everybody who can afford it simply bought another car for those days when the first car is banned on major roads. But my scheme should work. Instead of numbers, we’ll ban cars on the basis of what they are: Mondays: SUVs. Tuesdays: Luxury Cars. Wednesdays: Compact and Medium-size Cars. Thursdays: AUVs and MPVs. Fridays to Sundays: Really Ugly Cars (You owe it to the rest of the world). Economy cars like the Kia Picanto and Suzuki Alto can drive any day of the week, of course. They’re cheap to run, they don’t take up too much space on the road, and that’s a lot of votes for me! Naturally, the truly rich can buy a car for every day of the week, but at least they’re spreading the wealth and moving dealer inventories. To enforce the Friday-Sunday ban, we’ll create a roving Style Police headed by our raffish Motoring Editor, so all you Ssangyong Stavic drivers better watch out. Both of you.

Here are some of your Backseat Driver reactions from last week…

With the rising number of reckless bikers hitting cars and trucks everywhere, isn’t it high time the laws were amended to protect motorists? – 09202664571

Motorcycle drivers violate all traffic laws posing danger to life and property damages that they can easily escape from. Where’s the equality here? – 09285047008

There is poor lighting along Commonwealth Avenue in front of Sandiganbayan. Plus, the pedestrians in that area don’t know how to use the overpass. – 09176203448

Tinted glass plate covers for plate numbers defeat the purpose of the plate numbers. They render the plates unreadable. – 09209244739

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