King of the Road

In the Philippines, as a sales pitch that may be true or not, a jeepney declares itself as the "Hari ng Kalsada."

In Vietnam, however, there is is no doubt  about it: the King of the Road is the motorcycle, or motorcycles to be more exact.

Any first-timer in Hanoi, or in any other Vietnamese city for that matter, would immediately notice the huge swarm  of motorcycles that crazily squeeze their way through whatever opening there is in the street, red or green the traffic light may be.

And any sane driver behind the wheel should yield if he does not want to hit anyone, or more appropriately, being bumped into by motorcycles.

Any hot-headed driver will lose patience, any visitor will have his heart skip a beat or two when a motorcycle suddenly shows up in front and cut him off while his car crawls its way to whatever destination.

And a blaring siren is no guarantee the motorcycles will keep out of the way. An official-looking black car with "ASEAN" as license plate plus the siren will not work all the time, as what we and several non-Asians I was with during a conference in Hanoi recently learned.

It must have been a "culture shock" for those white men (and women) to see and experience such lithe machines stamping their superiority on the streets.

I, too, could not help but be afraid; not that motorcycles are a rarity in the Philippines or in Indonesia where I currently work.

For a Filipino with parents living away from the hustle and bustle of the city, a motorcycle is like a kindred spirit, a machine that literally brings you to wherever you go, be it across a raging river or through a narrow trail snaking its way up the mountains.

The motorcycle is now even an indispensable mode of transportation in areas where public transport is nil or seldom the norm in the Philippines.

Called a habal-habal in Cebu, a motorcycle can accommodate six people (pardon the unbelievers) as it groans and chokes its way up to wherever the teenage driver (often without a valid license) wills it to go.

That could explain why, though considered a private transport, the local government of Cebu City did not ban it as a means of conveyance in the mountain barangays. Concerned for the safety of passengers, City Hall instead created a body regulating the use of motorcycles as public transport. And as far as a I am concerned, no Philippine local government unit has actively went after the habal-habal.

Indonesia, too, has numerous motorcycles in the streets, with the density much higher than in the Philippines.

But that did not prepare me for what I saw in Hanoi.

The motorcycles were everywhere, including those that the young and the old ride, with children passengers as young as infants, all at once in any given time in any given section of a street. (I may be exaggerating, but this is close to the truth.)

I remember the orientations I attended on the possibility of implementing a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Cebu City, where Jakarta and Hanoi were the examples of cities besieged by motorcycles.

The logic in those lectures is that that if the number of people using their own means of transport is left unchecked, the results are horrendous traffic and dangerous streets; and that using the BRT is an effective solution to make people, both the rich and the poor, use public transport and help unclog the thoroughfares.

Strange as it may sound, however, what I saw in Jakarta and in Hanoi did not make me adopt the viewpoint that motorcycles, or the tricycles in the Philippines or Bajajs in Indonesia, as means of transportation, public or private, should be banned.

What is needed is a collective effort to discipline ourselves and be more concerned on safety.  A healthy respect for regulations will come a long way in preventing the over 1,000 motorcycle deaths, including those caused by trains crushing motorists crossing railways, in Jakarta each year.

And while motorcycle-related deaths due to road mishaps in Cebu City  are not as high as that in Jakarta, motorcycles also commonly figure in traffic accidents in the Philippines.

I am not sure about the statistics in Hanoi, but a report had it that  everyday,  35 people are killed and 60 more are injured in traffic accidents in Vietnam, with most incidents involving motorcycles.

In most cases, reckless driving is the cause of road mishaps.

Good or bad,  motorcycles in the streets have become a mark for Hanoi. And they are not bound to go away in Jakarta or in Cebu City either. Their numbers are even growing in those three cities.

So it is up to the government and the people if they want motorcycles to continue ruling the streets and for bodies to pile up each year, or impose order and sanity in thoroughfares.

To prevent loss of lives, discipline should rightfully be the King of the Road.