Many Filipino drivers have the propensity for frequently changing lanes. These happen even at locations where they are not supposed to be changing lanes (e.g., at intersections, while going up or down a steep slope, at curves, etc.). Such maneuvers are risky and basically among the reasons why there are double yellow solid lane markings separating opposing traffic at these sections. I have seen many incidents where in a matter of seconds at least one person is suddenly inconvenienced by the crash. I say at least one person because whether traffic is light or heavy, there will be vehicles slowing down and causing a chain reaction of other vehicles slowing down to stop or avoid the vehicles involved in the collision. These incidents occur because of at least one person’s propensity for suddenly switching lanes.

The rear bumper of a car gets torn-off (not just detached) by the bull bar of a vehicle whose driver decided to suddenly shift to the right. Apparently, the guilty driver was not able to factor his vehicle’s bull bar when he immediately encroached on the adjacent lane.

A closer look at the damage on the vehicle in front of us. We had to change lanes ourselves in order to avoid the stopped car. We could only imagine the traffic build-up resulting from the incident at the C5-Lanuza intersection.

I’m not sure how these people learned to drive. Driving schools will likely claim that they did their part in instructing their students/clients the proper way to drive. However, going through driving school is not an assurance for responsible driving. What more can be said for people who learned to drive the informal way (i.e., taught by a friend, relative or other people). Of course, this could have been addressed early on if the licensing system under the Land Transportation Office (LTO) was a lot stricter and exercised due diligence in their licensing examinations.

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