A motorcycle driver lost his leg today; his passenger lost his life

-
A parent's worst nightmare became true today.

Usiseros and usiseras were watching by the sidewalks. Police officers were directing traffic and were running low on temper. The queues on both sides of the road were growing longer as motorists slowed down to give way to emergency vehicles. 

A really bad accident happened on the road this morning...

Further along, a truck on the opposite side of the road was not moving; directly in front it was a motorbike lying on the road. Anguished cries grew louder near the accident site. A traffic enforcer kept motorists from stopping and ogling at the scene, but even he could not distract them from all the blood glistening on the road. 

Somebody died on this road this morning...

The last I saw before I drove past the scene was a man on his knees right by the motorbike, his face masked with grief, his sinewy arms pulling at something, or someone. I don't know who this man is but I know that he has just lost someone dear to him.

---

At the nearby gas station, I got part of the story from the attendant: the motorbike had overtaken the truck from the right side and suddenly swerved, blocking the truck's path. Then, the motorbike's driver lost control and crashed right in front of the bigger vehicle. With its driver unable to stop it in time, the truck hit the motorbike and crushed the two people riding it. The driver lost his leg; the passenger (a child, I was told) lost his life.

That kid is now a statistic... he joins the number of fatalities caused by motorcycle accidents in 2011. Sadly, as the popularity of motorbikes grow, the number of casualties will surely go up as well. 

Motorbikes (and other vehicles for that matter) are not perilous on their own. It's the stupid and inconsiderate driver who endangers himself, his passenger(s), and his fellow motorists. For motorbikes, a lot of their drivers disobey traffic rules; they weave in and out of road lanes, they drive beyond the speed limit, they don't use protective and/or high-visibility gear (NOTE: These apply to all reckless drivers, regardless of vehicle type). Then when they get involved in accidents, it's ALWAYS the bigger vehicle's driver's fault! 

Are we supposed to sit and wait as more STUPID and INCONSIDERATE motorcycle drivers put their and other people's lives at risk?!? What can we, the non-motorcycle-driving public, do about this?

Driving home from work today, I slowed down to avoid three of these fine specimens of stupidity as they occupied the wrong side of the road with impunity. Little did they know that a kid had met his fate this morning on the very street they disrespected.

Sigh.

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