EDITORIAL - Traffic campaigns need to be realistic

The concern of a group of professionals and car dealers about the worsening traffic situation in the city has prompted them to band together and launch a campaign called #GiveWayTaBai. The campaign aims to exhort drivers to drive responsibly and observe road courtesy. In that regard, we share their concern and support their campaign.

But for the campaign to succeed, it has to be precise. It has to direct its efforts at the road-using sectors that represent and embody the very root of the problem -- the irresponsible and discourteous drivers. And who are these irresponsible and discourteous drivers? They are not the professionals and the car dealers. They are not the educated and the civic-minded.

This is not intended to single out the public utility vehicle sector but unfortunately this is where most of the traffic violators come from, as borne by any and all official records kept by any government transport regulating body. Public utility drivers rack up the most number of traffic offenses and it is they who should be the subject of any honest-to-goodness campaign to introduce sanity in the streets.

Any cursory observation of road conditions will most likely reveal that private vehicles are more disposed to give way even in tight situations until a public utility vehicle comes along to disrupt the harmony. This is not to say that there are no abusive, irresponsible and discourteous drivers behind the wheels of private vehicles because there certainly are. And their numbers are many.

But it is the consistency that is worrisome. A person who is acutely aware of traffic regulations is more like to observe them more consistently than a person who does not have a vague idea of what traffic regulations are. In other words, a person aware of his responsibilities is more likely to act responsibly than a person who simply is not aware of his responsibilities in the first place.

And here we may go to a probable cause that has been largely been ignored in our focus to find solutions to road problems right there on the road itself. We need to remind ourselves that perhaps the answer lies elsewhere, and long before the problem even hits the road. Perhaps the problem lies in corruption. Corruption allows a completely unlettered person to acquire a driver's license in a wink of an eye.

Released to the streets, that person will act like the person he always was -- unrestrained by conventions, unfettered by regulations, unknowing of his responsibilities, a real king in the realms of his own mind. This is the person who should be targetted in this campaign. And while at it, we should involve motorcycle dealers who, for P2,000 down, allow our subject person's cousin to drive away on a motorbike, counterflowing over the median, against the traffic.