Driving in the Philippines is no easy task. It takes skill, smarts, and guts. If you can drive in the Philippines, you can drive anywhere in the world. Save perhaps for a few traffic violations here and there, Filipino drivers can survive in any country and get to where they're going. Foreigners, on the other hand, especially First-World-ers, can't drive for sh*t here. The overly offensive driving should actually be the least of their concerns. They should be more concerned with the routes.
Road signs pointing to destinations are severely lacking. If there ever was one and you manage to notice it, it'd be too late to take that crucial right-turn. Furthermore, a huge number of side streets are one-way without the corresponding one-way signs. "Enter at your own risk" is always on my mind whenever i'm in unfamiliar territory. Maps also mean nothing. Ok, fine, they can help a little, but you can't really survive with just reading it.
Why am i bringing this up? What has this got to do with the law and information technology?
Answer is... GPS for cars.
I remember having a talk with a friend of mine who's a geodetic engineer, he said that the problem why we don't have GPS yet in our country is that the Philippines hasn't been 'surveyed' properly yet. Hmmm.. i think there's more to it than that. In my opinion, no company in their right mind would invest to keep maintaining GPS. With the constant change in traffic flows, the no left- and right-turns, u-turn slots, it would be next to impossible to have a reliable GPS.
How can law help?
Honestly, i don't think it can.
There's just too many cars, driven by very angry drivers, in extremely inadequate road space. If this can't be solved, we'll just have to rely on our day-to-day route changes.
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I agree. Being a fellow driver, I very much feel your pain. Our roads are a mess and our traffic system is crazy. This is the reason why my world only extends as far as ortigas because makati, with all of its one way roads, is a violation landmine.
In korea, all forms of public utility vehicles are equipped with GPS. I think it is mandated by law. This and your post made me think about the potential ramifications of adopting a similar policy here in the Philippines.
If government requires everyone to adopt a GPS system, perhaps companies will venture into surveying our roads. It assures them of a market and that is always good in business. And when that happens, both companies and the transport sector will have the standing to sue government for all of its messy traffic laws. So perhaps government will shape up and respond to the challenge.
Either that or it turns further to corruption, in which case we are better off without it ... *sigh ...
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