EDITORIAL — Changes needed

Five people were hurt last Thursday night after a modern Public Utility Jeepney (PUJ) overturned along Xiamen Street in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City.

According to a report in this newspaper, the modern PUJs was traveling at around 40 kilometers per hour while maneuvering a curved portion of the road when it suddenly lost balance, overturned, and slammed onto the pavement, injuring passengers and damaging the vehicle.

The driver, who is new to driving a modern PUJ, was not detained after agreeing to shoulder the victims’ hospital expenses. While he said he lost control of the steering wheel leading to the accident, traffic investigators said they are looking into claims he was racing with another PUJ driver at the time.

Let’s give the driver the benefit of the doubt. But from what many of us see in the road, it would seem that some attitudes haven’t changed.

Like we said in previous editorial, the modern PUJs might be new, but some old attitudes remain. Some of those who are driving modern PUJs still behave like they are driving traditional PUJs; they still stop at no-stopping zones, pick up or drop off passengers anywhere, fill the vehicle to over capacity, and sometimes race with other modern PUJs for passengers.

But the modern PUJ isn’t like the traditional PUJ. If it goes over passenger capacity the air-conditioning will be strained, leaving cramped passengers stuffed in like sardines sweltering in the heat. If it stops anywhere to get passengers it will cause traffic for other vehicles on the road.

And because it is bigger and heavier than traditional PUJs, there’s always the chance that it can cause more casualties or more serious injuries during accidents, and to both those inside and outside the vehicle.

However, many people still prefer modern PUJs as opposed to traditional PUJs, especially those converted multicabs that feel more like sardine cans. What’s an additional ?2 for air-conditioning and lots of space after all? We would like to see more of modern PUJs on the road, but along with more of them we would also like to see safer driving and better adherence to road rules from their drivers.