Last part
We also believe that with the proliferation of proper driving schools (a good business considering the newness and number of their school cars, as well as the extensive private courses they offer) better drivers are produced, compared in the past when a “driving school” was usually the family driver teaching us on some abandoned road or empty subdivision. In my day, the few driving schools extant required you to bring your own car, and the few schools that had cars, for which the driving school charged highway-robbery prices, were in such bad shape you needed a mechanic to come along.
If you look beyond the broad condemnation of driving skills these days, it is plausible that today’s drivers should be better educated than us who have learned how to drive during the 1960s, give or take the mistakes we committed to get to our level of competence/incompetence today. I have had household staff take driving courses in the excellent but now defunct AAP Driving School and, believe me, comparing driving aptitude immediately after “graduation” with myself as the “dummy,” I was shamed by their proficiency, finesse and accuracy. The popular A-1 Driving School not only has lots of current-model, air-conditioned school cars, but also has a couple of extensive driving courses. Honda’s driving academy for both car and motorcycle owners has one of the best facilities in the region.
Now, suppose that the LTO imposes this licensing exam re-take as a pre-condition to license renewal by 2018? Unless the LTO provides the exam and reviewer over the Internet, ready for online examination or a printable form ready for submission, we may have to spend a few minutes more at the agency’s offices shading the right circles on the exam form. Or less, if the other proposal requiring random examination of applicants, using a much shorter list of questions, sort of like a pop quiz, is what the LTO decides to apply.
So how about the practical exam? Owing to the limited resources at all LTO offices, the retake of the practical exam may have to be either at random or none at all. And herein lies the root of the problem of our traffic mess and our high accident rate, for it is in the behavior behind the wheel that tells the examiner if the driver has not advanced since his student-driver days or, worse, has adopted driving habits that are dangerous and selfish. The defining exam has to be the practical one, and yet this is least emphasized.
Having passed the written exam, without taking the practical test, you now proceed to renew your license successfully. Done. Government happy. LTO applicant happy.
But will this improve overall driving skills on the street? We have a sneaking suspicion that most, if not all, bad drivers out there do, honestly and without third-party intervention, pass both the written and practical exam. Which is all the more damning because many traffic violations are committed by drivers who know what they are doing. The excuse? Opportunities just present themselves to tempt the driver in gaining a few minutes or spaces on which to get ahead, no matter how incremental such gains are. For the honest driver, the abuse of the privilege to drive is a temptation that proves hard to resist despite the heavy fines and penalties. There are also a selection of psychiatrists’ favorite bogeymen to blame — one-upmanship, nothing is illegal when no one is looking, a macho man is above the law, etc.
This calculated disregard of traffic rules happens everyday, especially when heavy jams causes high stress levels, or becomes the blame/excuse for intentional violations of the law. It is this congestion that leads many drivers to entertain thoughts of doing a “counter-flow.” And if the irritation or agony persists, the driver now gets into “beast mode,” a prelude to road rage.
On the other hand, one also notices that many of the “stupid” or “bad” drivers suddenly become law-abiding the moment they enter zones that have strict traffic-rules policing. Witness how hugely improved drivers become once they enter speed radar-infested sections of toll ways and areas like Subic, Ayala Alabang, BGC, etc., where the slightest infraction is ticketed right away. And, as you can predict the moment they are out of, say Subic naval base and into Olongapo city, these drivers return to their caveman-style of driving. Many have driven in other countries like the Gulf States and North America, and are quite alert to obeying the local laws, lest they lose their license.
So, you see, the drivers are not ignorant of the law in most cases. It’s just that obeying the law becomes dependent on the visibility of a law enforcer. Which bolsters the authorities’ simplistic but correct observation that because the Filipino driver lacks discipline, stiffer fines and blanketing the streets with CCTVs, drones and numerous traffic enforcers should do the trick.
Which brings us back to where we began. Enforcement is the key to address the Filipino driver’s lack of discipline. Since ill discipline is cured by behavior modification (which comes as a result of numerous traffic enforcement measures), then what is the point of reeducating and retesting all drivers every time they renew their licenses? Most of them know the rules anyway.
They just refuse to follow them.
