Recently, mobility website Visor posted this on their Facebook page: “An uneducated driver is a dangerous driver.”
That post was in response to a netizen’s comment on a dashcam video posted on Visor’s social media page about a car making a u-turn RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX). (Since when is U-turning allowed inside a closed-off toll road, even given that the incident happened along a portion of NLEX where the median is a grassy lane with no barriers?)
Long story short, here's how Visor view some netizens' comments on the video:
“Some people’s comments on our posts are truly alarming. At first, we thought baka joke or sarcastic lang. But later, it became very clear that they were not kidding—they really believed the comments that they were posting. Case in point: Several individuals were adamant that the video sender should have come to a halt because somebody was making a U-turn...on an expressway.”
Fools! Don’t they realize that if the driver that car suddenly halts (again, for emphasis) RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EFFING EXPRESSWAY to give way for the idiot who made the U-turn, he’s not just putting his own life in the line, but those of the other people behind him? That action could’ve caused a pile-up, especially if those behind him couldn’t brake in time!
Not only that, it’s alarming that some netizens now believe we should accommodate blatant wrongdoing “to avoid accidents.” Like, what? Okay lang na palagpasin na lang natin ang lantarang paglabag sa batas-trapiko para lang walang ibang maaksidente?
Such thinking, for me, represents a much wider malaise in the ordinary Filipinos’ way of thinking: of letting petty wrongs be “just to keep the peace.”
-o0o-
In my years as a commuter, I had come to believe that the “car-centric” thinking some of us had adopted represents the narrow, selfish way of thinking Filipinos had adopted when it comes to our social ills.
Pansinin ninyo, kapag may tumatawid sa pedestrian lane, ilang mga driver ang nagbabagal upang pagbigyan ang mga tumatawid? Mabibilang mo lang sa kamay, hindi ba? Yung iba, tila pinapabilis pa ang pagtakbo kapag may nakikitang tumatawid, parang inuunahan yung mga pedestrian. (Tapos kapag nabangga, either magmamakaaawa o di kaya e tatakasan ang responsibilidad.)
Yung mga pinopost na video ng Visor – ng mga driver na walang pakundangan kung mag-counterflow, takbuhan ang red light o di kaya e ayaw magbigay sa ibang mga sasakyan – sa palagay ko, isa itong sintomas ng isang bayan na walang pakialam sa ibang tao, basta ang mahalaga ay SIYA ang mauna. Makasarili, walang konsiderasyon, walang pag-iisip sa posibleng kahantungan ng kanyang ginagawa.
At, kung titingnan ang mga survey, iyan din ang nagiging mindset ng karamihan ng ating mga botante. E ano kung korap, walang alam o mamamatay-tao? Basta, binigyan niya AKO ng pera noong nagpunta siya sa amin!
Visor is right: An uneducated driver is a dangerous driver. And a dangerous driver is, by extension, also a dangerous voter.
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