Let’s act on road safety crisis!
May is Road Safety Month. It’s quite ironic that we started the month with some of the most gruesome crashes including one at SCTEX and another at NAIA. There is indeed a crisis on road safety but many are in denial or perhaps insensitive to the impacts of these crashes. We need to act and only together can we be most effective in reducing the risks for all road users.
So what can one do? How can one contribute to making roads safer? Sharing this poster from the Road Safety Research Laboratory (RSRL) of the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS) of the University of the Philippines:
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On gruesome road crashes and how they are reported
The past days have been terrible in terms of road crashes that have been reported. Of particular interest is the one last week involving four vehicles – a provincial bus slamming into 2 passenger vehicles against a stopped truck, and crushing both vehicles and their occupants. This was along SCTEX as vehicles were approaching a toll plaza. The trucks and passenger vehicles were stopped in a queue when a bus slammed into them. As of now the reports state at least 10 have lost their lives. One child miraculously survived the crash but lost both parents as per reports.
While mainstream media seems to be still conservative in how they report these incidents, social media offers much graphic, unedited content. Last Thursday and Friday, friends have shared posts by different people who have videoed the aftermath. It was gruesome and I will not describe them here nor share those videos that also appeared in my Facebook as reels. While there is the shock effect to the shared videos, one wonders whether these ultimately contribute to improving road safety or just add to what is now regarded as another category of porn (you’ve probably heard or read about food porn, tourism porn, shopping porn and poverty porn). These now have become more like spectacles that are viewed more for (sick) entertainment rather than to move people to action to address the road safety issues we face. While there are many responses offering comfort or prayers, how many would really act and actively call for safer transportation? As one friend exclaims – “Where’s the rage?”
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Closed shops at NAIA Terminal 2
Recently, I wrote about the closed shops at NAIA Terminal 3. While there are still shops at the terminal, the pre-departure area was devoid of non-food shops or stalls. The same is true for NAIA Terminal 2. Here are some photos I took a few days ago en route to Davao.
The north wing practically had no no-food shops. That left side in the photo used to have several souvenir shops and even a Duty Free Philippines shop.
The same was true for the south wing where only the food stalls remain.
Other food stalls at the south wing. There are two Cafe France stalls at the terminal pre-departure area, one at each wing. And most people seem to line up there and a couple other stalls as they offer the more substantial meals. Others offer basically merienda or snacks.
North wing food stalls
Will there be more shops later at the terminals? Maybe, perhaps. But as I mentioned in the previous post and as many have commented, it depends on the cost. Will it be expensive and therefore unattractive to potential concessionaires? Or will the airport operator come up with an attractive contract for shops to return to the terminals? Airports in Bicol, Cebu and Davao, for example, have nice shops that serve the needs of travelers. NAIA being the principal gateway to the country should have nothing less.
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On the ‘silent walk’
My first post this May is an article share on what is referred to now as a ‘silent walk’. That means leaving your gadget at home or work to take walk whether in park, the city or your neighborhood. We all seem to be dependent on our gadgets these days, with many panicking when discovering they left their gadget. It’s as if their world has stopped without the gadget at hand.
Bull, M. (April 30, 2025) “The power of a “silent walk”,” Medium, https://blog.medium.com/the-power-of-a-silent-walk-93ffdd70dbcb [Last accessed: 02/05/2025]
To quote from the article:
“For many of us who rely on laptops, phones, and apps throughout the day, it can be easy to reach for those same devices when we need to relax — if they solve our productivity issues, the thinking goes, they must solve our stress, too. But just as spending the first hour of your day screen free will have an outsize effect on your inner peace, leaving the phone and headphone at home while you head out for a walk will return you to a saner place in record time.”
Granted that you bring your gadget for ’emergency purposes’, perhaps the key is not using it. Keep it in your pocket. Refrain from checking or glancing at the slightest temptation. It may be difficult at first but it will gradually build into your routine. And perhaps, too, you will feel a bit of liberation from these gadgets and reconnect with the world around you to help your well-being.
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Closed shops at NAIA Terminal 3
I’ve been seeing posts on social media about many shops being closed after San Miguel took over the NAIA terminals. Last February, on the way to Bicol via NAIA Terminal 3, I was able to see for myself just how many and what shops are no longer at the terminal. Here are photos of the area that used to be lined with shops on one side and restaurants on the other that leads to the terminal gates. What used to be a line of shops are now closed and now lined with seats instead.
There used to be some nice shops there including a chocolate shop, an Islands Souvenir shop and a Bath & Body Works shop. They are no longer there along with others where you could have gotten souvenirs or some travel needs or accessories. Did their contracts or leases end recently and higher rates led to their non-renewals and closure? Or does the airport operator have different plans for these stalls? I haven’t seen if the same happened to other shops at the terminal, particularly those at the third level. The absence or scarcity of shops is definitely an inconvenience to many travelers.
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On safe school zones
We’ve been working for safer roads since I started practicing as a transportation engineer/planner. Most recently, we were working on a program supported by UNICEF on Child Road Traffic Injury Prevention (CRTIP). The work towards safer roads especially for those who are most vulnerable is always challenging but it is something that is definitely worthwhile. As we approach May, which is Road Safety Month in the Philippines, I will try to write more about road safety.
Here is an infographic shared by the Road Safety Research Laboratory of the National Center for Transportation Studies of the University of the Philippines:
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Shared article on shared mobility
Here’s is a nice short read on a Sunday about shared mobility. The article is of particular interest to me because it tackles the needs of persons with disabilities, senior citizens and those in low income households.
Seruga, K. (April 14, 2025) “Shared mobility: Making travel easier for all,” Knowable Magazine, https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2025/increasing-access-to-shared-transportation [Last accessed: 27/04/2025]
“But if you’re disabled or elderly, living in a low-income area or — imagine! — without a smartphone or credit card, using these shared mobility services becomes a lot more difficult. They tend to cluster in more affluent urban areas, and are often inaccessible to people with reduced mobility or those traveling with young children needing child seats. In part because of these factors, users are disproportionately younger, wealthier, able-bodied, white and male.
Shared mobility could be a key part of a more sustainable transportation system. But to be most effective, it needs to include everyone. For-profit shared mobility providers have largely failed to deliver on this, but various initiatives and projects are finding creative solutions to reach underserved communities.
The potential benefits are large. On-demand shared mobility that feeds into well-developed public transportation systems could reduce the number of vehicles in some cities by 90 percent and cut transportation emissions by 50 percent — but only if it largely replaces private car use. “The car has to be a guest, not the main actor,” says Luis Martinez, lead modeler at the International Transport Forum, who coauthored a paper on shared mobility and sustainability in the 2024 Annual Review of Environment and Resources.”
There is a cautionary tale on ‘for-profit’ shared mobility here but a major difference in countries like the Philippines from those in western countries is the presence motorcycle taxis and the surge in the ownership of electric three-wheelers. These have changed the way people travel though their impacts are only now being assessed.
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On understanding road diets
I’ve written and shared articles on road diets and complete streets before. Here is another article share on road diets
Johnson, R. (April 21, 2025) “Explainer: What is a Road Diet – And Why Should Cities Embrace It?,” Momentum Magazine, https://momentummag.com/explainer-what-is-a-road-diet-and-why-should-cities-embrace-it/ [Last accessed: 22/04/2025]
To quote from the article:
“The road diet isn’t about punishing drivers. It’s about creating streets that work better for everyone—from the parent pushing a stroller to the teenager biking to school, the delivery driver navigating a tight urban corridor, or the senior walking to the store.
As our cities continue to evolve, road diets offer a cost-effective, data-backed, and scalable way to make them safer, cleaner, and more livable. It’s not just about losing a lane—it’s about gaining a better future for urban mobility.”
Indeed, the first thing that usually comes to mind of motorists whenever road diets and complete streets are mentioned is that the road space (and consequently capacity) will be reduced. This reduction of capacity is actually from the perspective of the motor vehicle rather than the number of people traveling along a road as well as improving road safety for all. The article is spot on in its discussion on the resistance to road diets (and complete streets). Of course, context is very important here and it is important to identify which roads can be transformed for the transformation to be most effective.
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On transportation problems being treated like diseases
I am sharing this relatively old article on transportation problems needing treatments as if these were diseases. I say it’s ‘old’ because it’s from last year, and these days when much content is being pushed everywhere including mainstream and social media, things get old, quickly. Rewind to more than a decade ago and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) wasn’t as popularly applied as today and Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be everywhere now including in transportation systems.
Menard, T. (September 1, 2024) “Transportation Rx: Treating Traffic Glut Like Doctors Treat Sinus Congestion,” Planetizen, https://www.planetizen.com/features/131478-transportation-rx-treating-traffic-glut-doctors-treat-sinus-congestion [Last accessed: 4/21/2025]
To quote from the article:
“Traffic congestion is not unlike congestion that builds up in the human airways. When we see a doctor, we are prescribed a treatment that clears the backup. Similarly for roads, rather than setting up road signs and cones to redirect traffic, cities can take a more prescribed treatment approach through methods such as congestion pricing and other road pricing strategies, as well as technologies like edge computing, navigation-enabled Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) modeling, and transit signal prioritization. “
This is not the first article to allude to medicine when the topic is traffic congestion. There are others that use terminology from the human body’s circulatory system. When an artery gets blocked, a bypass can be a solution. But perhaps we don’t need bypasses and look at other. more effective ways of dealing with transportation problems.
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On reckless driving and riding, road rage, and kamotes
A story went viral a couple of weeks ago about a motorcycle rider getting shot by a driver. Many discussions and videos have been shared with some sympathetic to the driver and others to the riders. One thing is definite from the videos shared when you filter the commentaries and biased opinions – both the driver and the riders are guilty of reckless driving or riding. With all due respect to the root crop often invoked and associated with these kinds of motorists, kamotes as they are called seem to have increased no thanks to many of these learning to operate motor vehicles without being properly trained, oriented, evaluated and tested if they deserve having licenses. The increase and documentation of incidents of road rage should be taken very seriously by the LTO and serve as reference for improving the licensing system.
Here’s an informative material on reckless driving from the National Center for Transportation Studies’ Road Safety Research Laboratory:
This Holy Week, there are many who are using the roads whether for long distance travel (e.g., spending the holidays in their hometowns away from the metro) or for the typical religious trips (e.g., pilgrimages, Visita Iglesia, etc.). Motorists should exercise caution as they drive or ride. We should be more mindful of the impacts of our behavior to other travelers whom we share the roads with.
Safe travels to all!
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Caught (up) in traffic 