Govt mulls stiffer penalties on reckless drivers

MANILA, Philippines - The Land Transportation Office (LTO) wants stiffer penalties slapped on reckless drivers following recent road accidents involving erring bus drivers. LTO chief Alberto Suansing said Thursday they are considering the revision of their rules against reckless driving, whether it is on bus, jeepneys, or trucks. Suansing said if possible, they will move for the suspension of public utility drivers and their licenses on first offense. “Ang plano namin ay ang baguhin ang mga alituntunin… Nagbabalangkas kami na gagawin namin na first offense pa lang ay may suspension na kapag may reckless driving,” Suansing said in a radio interview. ("We plan to change the guidelines. We are discussing how to make it possible to suspend reckless drivers and their licenses at first offense.") Under current rules, reckless drivers are only required to pay P500 for their first offense, P750 for their second, and P1,000 if they commit the same offense for the third time. A driver’s license only gets revoked if the same offense of reckless driving is committed four times. Suansing said a legal team from the LTO is already studying options on how to make revisions on certain road rules without having to gain approval from Congress. However, Suansing lamented how a driver’s traffic offenses do not necessarily get reported to them all the time, saying they rely solely on traffic reports that they get from the police. “We don’t have a database to know if there were previous offenses, unless it is reported to us by the police,” the LTO chief admitted. Suansing said they had no prior knowledge that Marianito Madrid, the driver in the deadly Joanna Jesh bus incident, already has seven traffic offenses under his belt. Superintendent Norberto Babagay, chief of the Quezon City police’s Traffic Enforcement Unit, even told GMANews.TV in a recent interview that one of these offenses was also reckless driving resulting in multiple injuries. On a side note, Suansing said during the radio interview that the LTO has not yet stepped in the traffic case of Madrid and not yet suspended his license, pending completion of a police investigation on the driver. In order to address the problem in transmitting traffic violation reports to the LTO office, Suansing suggested that the LTO be allowed to deputize police officers. Also, the LTO would be asking its mother agency - the Department of Transportation and Communication – to augment the mobile force of the LTO to improve its patrolling operations on the road. On the latest round of bus-related road tragedies, Suansing blamed the drivers for insisting on speeding even under a bad weather. “Iyong sa Cavite at sa Mandaluyong, gawa iyon ng katangahan dahil alam mo nang basa ang kalsada bakit nagmamabilis ka pa rin (The incidents in Cavite and Mandaluyong were due to stupidity. The road was wet and slippery, and yet they still ran in full speed),” Suansing said. He was referring to the twin road accidents that happened separately in Kawit, Cavite and along Epifanio delos Santos Avenue in Mandaluyong City, where one died and 33 people were injured. “The test that we conducted on them did not capture that katangahan (stupidity),” he added, when asked how the drivers of the buses in Thursday’s road accidents secured licenses in the first place. Suansing said he is already trying to cook up a type of examination that would expose the inefficiencies and incompetence of people applying for a driver’s license. “I am looking for a system wherein I can see the level of incompetence of drivers,” the LTO official said. He also reminded the people not even to consider the recent road mishaps involving buses as “accidents.” Rather, he said the incidents should be considered as “road crashing,” putting the blame on the drivers. - GMANews.TV