Traffic and Driving -- Manila Style

Oh, okay. I live in Manila. I like the place for its diverse selection of food, great hangouts, and cheap and good buys tiannge. But I don't necessarily have to like the endless traffic, driving style and other traffic issues.

But then I live in the place so I've got to live with that endless traffic too. So what would normally be a thirty minute drive from one place to another would end up becoming an agonizing two hour stuck-in-a-bumper-to-bumper-traffic predicament. That's a pretty normal thing in Manila. Nothing to get surprised about. What isn't normal however, is a sight like this.

Uploaded by permanently scatterbrained

What the ... ? There's no traffic?! WOW!

But if that isn't the scene that you'd come across, then this is more likely the one.

Uploaded by UKDevon

Which is actually a rather tamed version of a chaotic Manila traffic. So if you want to go somewhere (which of course, you would), you'd better get used to spending a large chunk of your day sitting in the traffic. Waste of time and very boring. Unless you're the type who likes to get entertained by street children singing Christmas carols in exchange for money right outside your car window. Or the shopaholic kind who'd relish any chance to shop whether it be in the malls or right in the middle of a highway from vendors who are selling practically anything - from mineral water to household cleaning implements.

Uploaded by aSIMULAtor

But I'm usually not up to those side shows. For one, my heart goes out to those street children and giving them money would not solve the problem. And two, it's really very dangerous for them and for those vendors to be right in the middle of a busy street. And three, heavy traffic is bad for me since I have a really weak tolerance for the stop and go motion of a vehicle as it makes my head spin and causes me to throw up. So even if i were any of those characters, I'd be busy nursing my motion intolerance (sickness, would be more like it) to even notice them.

Then, I have to live with the fact that it's very over-crowded too. You see people everywhere - in the street sidewalks walking or waiting for public transportation, crossing the streets, in the overpass, in the underpass, really everywhere. And of course, as I've said - in the middle of the streets. I'm left wondering where all those people came from. I'm fine with that, however. What really upsets me, though, is that some don't follow traffic rules. They cross the streets wherever and whenever they want to; which is really unsafe. They don't use the pedestrian lane even if there's one. So it's no surprise that if you were driving, say, on a non pedestrian road, a pedestrian would suddenly appear out of nowhere and cross the street. Hello? You've got to have good reflexes in order to hit your brakes fast enough to avoid running them over! Huh! I'm a pedestrian myself but I make it a point not to give motorists a hard time. In fact, most of the time, it's even the motorists here who gives me a hard time, because even when I'm already on the pedestrian lane, they still won't give way to me.

And the really challenging part is the way people here drive. I believe that drivers here do not practice any road courtesy at all. They don't have rules like when in an intersection, whoever is on the left must give way to whoever is on right, etc. Or that before you change lanes, you must be at a certain distance in order to do so. Or even if they do have these rules, they don't follow it at all. I think the NUMBER ONE rule here in driving is to CUT OTHER VEHICLES and go first! Because everyone really cuts you in the road. Drivers here don't give way. I don't think they even care whether it's dangerous or not. If you honk at them to get their attention, they would even have the audacity to stare you down as if you were the one in the wrong!

And there are no lines in the road to separate one lane from another. There was even a circulating joke that said that that was because the road is just a one big lane! Duh! And since that was the case, vehicles were crisscrossing and changing lanes whenever they wanted to. Really very unsafe.

Now, if you happen to be driving along EDSA (Manila's main highway), big buses would go right beside you and then they'd - of course - cut you. And unless you're driving a big bus yourself, all that's left for you to do is give way; otherwise you'll run the risk of getting run down.

Not only do you have to contend with big buses, you also have to watch out for those small tricycles. Tricycles would drive right beside you that there's only an inch separating your vehicle from them. And no matter how small they are, they're also not afraid to cut you. Maybe because they think that since you're driving a car, you wouldn't risk the chance of getting it scraped since you couldn't go after them anyway because they don't have any insurance.

Bicycles are a headache too. There are no separate bicycle lanes here so it's no surprise if you'd find bicycles among four-wheeled vehicles in major and big highways. They would suddenly materialize out of nowhere without any previous kind of signal. So if you're the kind whose reflexes are not fast enough, you'd actually end up hitting them. And they're not an exception to the rule of cutting other vehicles; because no matter how thin they are, they also would almost always cut you. And it gets more dangerous at night because these bicycles do not have any lights or signs that will alert you that they're there at all.

When we've just arrived back here, my husband was really afraid to drive. But he had no choice. So whenever he would, he was always stressed out. And really pissed off. Not the scratch-his-head kind of pissed off. But the tear-his-hair-out kind of pissed off. On my part, I didn't even attempt to think about driving here at all. I don't think I would have survived the ordeal.

With all that driving skill needed, I'm beginning to think Filipino drivers are the most skillful in the world.

So unless, I grow wings or learn to fly, I have no choice but to endure it.

With all that being said, do you really expect me to like that part. I hope you don't.

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