WHAT do you do when motorists fail to slow down in a school zone, endangering hundreds of students negotiating the streets on their way to school?
In the cases of Medicine sophomore Pamela Mondejar and high school students Jomer and Marie Joy Racca, “endanger” is an understatement. On Jan. 15, a six-wheeler truck pinned Mondejar under its left front wheel near the crossing of Dapitan and Lacson Streets, while a speeding Eagle Star bus ran over the Racca siblings last Feb. 4 just outside the Lacson gate. All three were brought to the hospital, with Jomer ending up in the intensive care unit.
True to its role as surrogate parent, the University through its officials called the attention of the Manila City Hall regarding the implementation of measures that would prevent similar accidents in the future. The appeal: build an overpass at or near the University’s Lacson gate.
The University’s concern for the safety and well-being of its students is only appropriate. But while we laud the sentiment, there are just a few things regarding its recommended prescription to City Hall.
It is truly unfortunate that UST is boxed in by some of Manila’s major thoroughfares—España Avenue up front, Dapitan and Lacson Streets, and Padre Noval, which, compared to the first three, has been free of accidents so far.
But with the exception of España, an overpass or footbridge on any of the other streets would be a concrete-and-steel eyesore for the sheer want of space.
And aesthetics aside, the administration’s call for the construction of an overpass or footbridge is a case of correct diagnosis, wrong prescription. In fact, it is avoiding the real issue, which is motorists failing to recognize that they are driving through a school zone, and thus should exercise more caution.
That says a lot about drivers—mostly of big trucks and buses—plying the Quirino-Lacson-Dimasalang route, how they lack the necessary drivers’ etiquette.
It also says a lot about the government, through the Land Transportation Office, issuing licenses to applicants who are uneducated as to basic driving rules as slowing down at intersections or pedestrian lanes. It says a lot about its non-action to educate such applicants, test both their practical and theoretical capabilities through the proper examinations, and implement strictly the traffic laws by bringing in violators and enjoining them to attend refreshers as to the proper way.
What the University should call for is the implementation of these more basic and, in the end, more preventive measures, rather than an impractical eyesore that would just add to an already otherwise cluttered metro.
Better yet, the University should call for the rerouting of these trucks and buses through streets a littler farther away from school areas. A truck racing against the truck ban poses a great danger when passing through a thickly populated school like UST.
If not, then at least there should be a more visible traffic regulation force around the school specifically at problem areas like Lacson and Dapitan. It is undeniable that our own security guards stationed at the gates sometimes have to double as traffic enforcers on the street outside their areas, effectively leaving their assigned posts and duties.
What’s more, the detail of more traffic enforcers would control not only the flow of traffic, but pedestrians as well, as it is a fact that the pedestrian can very well contribute to the cause of his injury by not minding traffic rules, and the proper crossing lanes.
Accidents, like what happened to Marie Joy, Jomer, and Pamela, can be averted. But the University should make a more appropriate prescription for this particular malady.
