Posted on May 12, 2008 - Filed Under General |
MANY DAGUPENOS, pedestrians especially, are wondering whether there’s still the law regulating the operation of tricycles in Dagupan City. They feel that if the law has not been repealed or amended, perhaps it’s more honored now in the breach than in the observance.One need only look at the buzzing, roaring tricycle units in the city roads today to realize what these observers mean – there are infinitely much more units running on the road now than at any other time and, hear this, six out of 10 of them do not have the mandated route and windshield numbers painted on them.That could only mean they’re, in more sense than one, colorum (or unregistered) units. Woe to the passenger who meets an accident while riding in one of these three-wheeled contraptions.
And the manners and discipline of many of these drivers – they’re fit to be hanged for gross discourtesy! City Hall (or anyone interested to find this out among the many salaried, sitting factotums in there – hello, anybody home?) need only ask the first citizen on the street to validate this observation. This unwelcome development can also mean many of these public utility conveyances (to include the jeepneys), since the start of this city administration, have been thumbing their noses at enforcement authorities (and the law itself) and violating regulations at will. They can hardly be blamed though; with no official (surprisingly even Robert Erfe Mejia’s “orange boys” – the POSO) now seemingly giving a hoot about authorized or unauthorized, legal and illegal, genuine or fake operators, it’s a free zone out there. And the law be damned!Perhaps, they’re all waiting for a precedent case when an accident victim, riding in one of these colorum tricycles, finally sues the city for allowing these illegals to ferry people even without the mandatory insurance covers.Remember that case long ago of a citizen who fell on an open manhole here and sued the city for his pain and shame? Well, the city lost that one – and the city seems not to have learned its lesson well.
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