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On safety along boring roads
I saw this interesting article about “boring” roads. It seems to be consistent with anecdotal evidence about ordinary roads with unremarkable features especially along adjacent lands. What may be termed as “beautiful” and “remarkable” may not necessarily be distractions to road users. Rather, it may keep people’s attention on the roads and people outside cars or, as the article refers to them, non-motorist car injuries or fatalities. There seems to be some confusing outcomes or perhaps confusing use of terminology in how the article is written (i.e., how perceptions are stated in the article).
Wilson, K. (August 21, 2025) “Study: Boring Roads End Up With More Injuries For People Outside Cars,” Streets Blog USA, https://usa.streetsblog.org/2025/08/21/study-boring-roads-end-up-with-more-injuries-for-people-outside-cars [Last accessed: 8/27/2025]
Quoting from the article:
“Researchers at the University of Connecticut recently analyzed the emotional reactions of more than 81,000 volunteers to a trove of Google Street View images from 56 cities around the world — and found that certain recurring perceptions correlated tightly with how many car crashes involving vulnerable road users actually happened where those photos were taken.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the participants were pretty good at gauging whether a road was “safe” for walking and biking just by eyeballing it and reporting on how safe it made them feel in general, adding further evidence to the pile that “perceived safety” is a critical metric that every transportation leader should take seriously. Streets that volunteers perceived as “wealthier” also tended to record lower crash volumes — which also might be intuitive, considering that some of the most obvious signs of neighborhood affluence can be great public infrastructure like smooth sidewalks, pristine bike lanes, and ample street lighting.
Roads that were rated as “lively,” meanwhile, were associated with higher crash volumes — though the researchers were careful to note that may just be because there were more people in those images, and crash rates per capita, or per pedestrian- or bike-mile traveled, might actually be lower in hopping human-centered areas.”
In that last paragraph, the term “lively” might have different perceptions depending on the people looking at images of streets. In our case, the street scene in Divisoria, for example, can be described as “lively” yet it may be safer than what is perceived in other countries, especially in the west. I think we have to be careful with the kind of studies as described in the article and to be fair, they did say that their study is still at an exploratory stage.
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Moving about in Singapore
I’m back in Singapore and enjoying going around the city using its efficient public transportation system and pedestrian facilities. I am quite at home with the system considering I lived in Japan for quite some time and commuted daily using the rail and bus systems there. It was in Japan where I had a first hand experience of what an efficient public transport system should be whether for long distance commuting (i.e., I knew some supercommuters in Japan who used the shinkansen to go to the office or laboratory every weekday although using the Tokaido Line to commute between Kanagawa to Tokyo qualifies as supercommuting.) or for short distance trips.
I was able to appreciate mobility in Japan considering the interconnectivity of transport modes and the ease by which one can use the system. Even the payment of fares was efficient as one had many options for paying fares and could use various cards including using either the Pasmo card issued by private railway companies or the Suica card issued by Japan Railways (JR). One only needed to load the cards with enough credits to be able to use the cards for not only transport fares but even for paying for items such as food and drinks. One can even personalize the card and it can be reloaded after a period of not being able to use the card.
Singapore is not so much different from Japan in terms of transport systems and if one considers the electronic road pricing (ERP) being applied throughout the state, may even be more advanced in applications of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). Moving around in Singapore is so easy considering its rail and bus systems. There are even a number of bus types plying routes around the system including articulated buses much like those used by Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems and double deckers like the ones in Hongkong and London. I haven’t noticed and am not aware if there are paratransit systems outside the human powered rickshaws I found near Bugis but which appears only during night-time, considering the city-state being compact and there seems no need for paratransit like the jeepneys, multicabs and tricycles in the Philippines, or the tuktuks in Thailand. There should be no need considering the strategic placing of bus stops and train stations throughout the city and the well planned pedestrian facilities that complement these mass transit modes.
I have always looked forward to having such a system realized in the Philippines whether its going to be in Metro Manila or another city. It is still a vision that has often been derailed what with the systems that have been constructed so far and the weak handling of issues pertaining to bus, jeepney and tricycle services in the Philippines. And some people even argue that “service” shouldn’t be a word to be used to describe public transport in the Philippines. Rationalization of public transport systems back home seems a distant vision considering the chaos surrounding the matter. We can only hope that our efforts will not go to naught and that we can realize an efficient system within our lifespans. Perhaps that will be our legacy for the coming generations, for them to have system that they can be proud of and not drool over when they experience such in other countries such as Singapore.
What irritates you?
Early this week, we realized that only one of the regular hosts of our weekly radio program, Wangwang ng Bayan, would be available for the live broadcast. Being the last week of regular classes didn’t help as we had to consider conflicting schedules that seemed to feature a lot of double and even triple booking of certain time slots. Wednesday proved to be a difficult day what with a mix including undergraduate research presentations, a college board meeting, field survey orientations and our radio program. Good thing that it didn’t become the nightmare we were anticipating as we were able to agree on how to divide ourselves and distribute our times and attentions to the various tasks at hand that day. I won’t delve into the details of what we did with the others but will just talk about how we were able to manage with our radio program.
We figured that we had to have a topic that would be easy for one host and our assistant to tackle while the other host and the producer were out. I figured that an easy topic would be about what irritates us when we’re on the road whether as drivers/motorists, passengers or pedestrians. We would ask our listeners to pitch in on what they thought were their pet peeves on transport and traffic. The result was a very lively show with the host and her assistant fielding questions and comments on just about anything under the sun and on the street.
Prior to the show, we ran a simple survey among our center’s staff, some students and our trainees in our Traffic Administration Course. The survey outcomes allowed us to have a handle on what we can anticipate for responses to the question we would be posing on air. After all, there should be common pet peeves regardless of whether one is driving, riding, walking or cycling. I even volunteered my own top ten list of what irritates me when I’m on the road. These are:
1. Jaywalking/pedestrians crossing anywhere;
2. PUB or PUJ weaving at high speeds in traffic;
3. PUV’s loading/unloading in the middle of the road;
4. Vehicles especially private cars cutting into my lane;
I can go on and identify more pet peeves but it is unnecessary and the top ten pretty much drives the point in as far as irritating things are concerned. When coming up with the list, I eventually felt a little frustration as I came to realize that many of these pet peeves have not been addressed despite many being glaring examples of how chaotic traffic and transport can be in this country. What irritates us the most is the collective chaos we experience everyday, and what seems to be our helplessness and the futility of authorities in addressing these manifestations of an inadequate transportation system.
But there is hope considering that my and other people’s list seem to have lost an entry – wangwangs, or the illegal/improper use of sirens. The success of a campaign enforcing against wangwangs last year showed many of us how it can be done and done right. Perhaps, as I’ve suggested in previous posts, the strategy could be to tackle these irritations one at a time. No MacArthur didn’t return to the Philippines direct from Australia. He liberated lands one island at a time, slowly but surely. Perhaps that should be the approach for us to eventually reduce the list until there are none at all that irritates us. And what a country we would be when we finally realize that progress requires discipline and a bit of soul searching that starts with simple questions like “what irritates you?”
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Wangwang ng Bayan can be heard on AM radio. Just tune in to DZUP 1602, the last station on the dial. Livestreaming available over at www.dzup.org
Caught (up) in traffic 