Lost priorities

A couple of weeks I read on Facebook and learned from a couple of friends that people from the Land Transportation Office have once again started stopping cars to check for violations. The funny thing is that despite all the traffic violations being committed on our roads, what the officials of the LTO have decided to crack down on is whether or not our cars have early warning devices.

The LTO did this a couple of years ago and the horror stories of a few unlucky friends prompted me to check my vehicle for an early warning device, which I discovered then wasn’t part of the standard equipment of vehicles being sold in the country. Learning their lesson, I bought the required equipment and am proud to say that I have since then been in full compliance with that particular law.

This week I was driving southbound along Lacson Street, just after the Lizares intersection when I saw what looked like LTO agents flagging down cars and I assumed they were at it again. I can only assume they were trying to get their quota of missing early warning device violations because the agency’s embarrassing inability to issue registration stickers or new license plates would have severely handicapped their agent’s credibility in flagging anybody who could be accused of not having an updated registration sticker.

Can anybody tell me why LTO agents are wasting their time and resources flagging down random vehicles when they should have spent that time inspecting vehicles for full compliance during the yearly registration process?

If you come to think of it, the only explanation for that random inspection is that the LTO doesn’t perform that inspection properly during the annual registration of motor vehicles. That would also explain why a lot of vehicles that couldn’t pass a roadworthiness test even if it were conducted by a toddler are still on our roads, causing traffic as well as posing safety hazards when they break down in the middle of those roads.

How else would you explain the sheer number of vehicles, most of which are ironically considered public utility; with balding tires, triple-pump-action brakes, misaligned steering, defective lights and decades-old, inefficient and unreliable surplus engines that continue to ply our streets? Something about our LTO allows those dangerous and unreliable vehicles that shouldn’t be to renew their registration and go back on the road but the good news is that thanks to the massive LTO campaign to ensure that they have EWD’s, we won’t have to bump into them when they inevitably break down in the middle of the road.

Why is the LTO wasting time flagging down random vehicles, hoping to catch them without an EWD, when almost every day there is a jeepney, stranded in the middle of the road, undergoing repairs as it uses the illegitimate mother of all early warning devices: the rear bench seat leaning against the stricken public utility vehicle? First of all, why do the authorities allow the practice of using the middle of the road as a repair shop? Secondly, why are there so many broken down public utility vehicles if the appropriate government agency is supposed to have checked those vehicles for road worthiness during the annual registration period?

We really wouldn’t mind the zeal of the LTO in apprehending violators if missing EWD’s were the only traffic violations left that needed to be enforced. What makes this choice of the LTO to pick on that particular issue so sad is that there are so many other more pressing violations that are in dire need of attention.

The traffic violations that most of us encounter everyday, committed by PUV’s, private vehicles, government vehicles, tricycles, trisikads and what not prove that something is seriously wrong with the way driver’s licenses are given away willy nilly and that something is deathly wrong with the way the unsafe and irresponsible drivers are allowed to keep those pieces of plastic (well, paper also works these days if you believe what they are saying about the LTO’s inability to expeditiously print out plastic driver’s license cards).

Aside from allowing illiterate maniacs and psychopaths to drive anything they pretty much please, this government agency can’t even issue simple registration renewal stickers or fulfill their promise to issue new license plates after charging vehicle owners P350 up front and promising to deliver within three months. Are we being gullible when we expect them to fulfill a contractual obligation even after hearing that owners of brand new vehicles have waited months for their license plates in vain?

The frustrating thing is that despite all these institutional and deeply rooted problems within the LTO, it has decided to keep itself busy with enforcing rules on early warning devices and seatbelts. I guess we can’t blame the people who are out there on the streets, flagging down random vehicles and inconveniencing the public in their quest to ensure that every vehicle has the required EWD because they are just following orders and trying to earn a living, but it would really make their job easier if their bosses had done a better job in making sure that the government agency they are working for is really protecting the best interests of the driving public, and not just trying to look busy for the sake of looking busy.*

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