Defensive driving

-
Defensive driving… people had mixed reactions when I told them (animatedly) that I was attending the seminar. My officemates asked why I still needed to attend the class… the same one is offered at work. And a friend had a good laugh. :D

Anyway, there was no big reason why I attended it: I just went there for the fun of learning something new. For instance, there’s no such thing as beating the red light. It turns out that it’s impossible to beat the red light. Drivers beat the yellow light! But I digress from the point. The seminar turned out to be a refresher course to everything that I’ve learned while on the road; only this time, I was sitting in a classroom with other drivers who have driven for a longer time (and yet they were attending the seminar). And I was taking time to listen to a formal lecture about it.

So, what did I actually get during the seminar? The most important point of the lesson, aside from being reminded about proper behaviour on the road, was how to avoid being fooled by the officer who may flag me down in the future. No less than the chief of operations of the Land Transportation Office (region 4) provided us with a list of fines for specific violations. Thus, if a traffic enforcer flags me down and wants exorbitant fees, all I have to do is refer to the list… although I would rather prefer that I don’t get flagged down, ever!

Then, for the defensive driving part, the most important lesson I learned was NEVER INSIST ON THE RIGHT OF WAY. That’s when you know that doing so can put you and your passengers, and the other people on the road, in danger. Might as well yield or fully stop at an intersection than have a collision with another road user. :D

This morning proved to be fruitful. And I was able to remember, and to practice, that I should maintain a car’s length distance for every 15kph reading. So, when I had to drive at 75kph along the South Luzon Expressway en route from Alabang to Calamba this evening, I had to drive five cars’ length away from the vehicle in front.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more