Edsa ‘blue lane’ violators top 1K

Valentine’s Day came with a hard lesson for over a thousand erring motorcycle riders on Edsa: Stick to one.

That is, stick to the one lane designated by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), which yesterday began a one-week dry run of the new traffic measure on the country’s busiest thoroughfare.

The MMDA has designated the fourth lane from the right sidewalk as motorcycle lanes, marking them with broken blue lines.

The agency said it had apprehended at least 1,403 motorcycle users as of 5 p.m., with the number expected to go higher last night. Some of the violators were cited for offenses other than straying from the lane, like riding their bikes without helmets.

The agency did not issue violation tickets or fined the first-day offenders but merely made them undergo a 15-minute road safety seminar at different venues on Roxas Blvd., Orense, White Plains, Timog Avenue and Quezon Avenue.

Early complaints

Among the first to undergo the seminar at White Plains were Andrew Fronda, 32, a general maintenance worker from Pasig City, and Arman Gapate, 27, a delivery boy for a dimsum restaurant.

In interviews with the Inquirer, they mainly complained that the new restrictions made it difficult for them to overtake four-wheel vehicles that are allowed to use the motorcycle lanes.

“It is quite hard to do that when you are on a motorcycle,” Fronda said. “But I’ll really try to follow it.”

Gapate said he didn’t mind being late for his delivery and even made light of the seminar, which an MMDA staff member conducted using a megaphone and “slides” made of tarpaulin. “It went pretty fast and I could still catch up. The siopao (buns) on my bike are still fresh,” he said.

A bike-riding newspaper delivery boy was also apprehended for overloading. He was transporting thick stacks of newspapers that he tried to balance in front of and behind him on the bike.

“With the use of the motorcycle lanes on Edsa, we hope to see a dramatic decrease from the 700 accidents we see on the road every year,” said MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino.

The dry run will continue up to Sunday, after which the MMDA will start imposing penalties.

Failure to use the motorcycle lanes carries a P500 fine. Those caught not wearing helmets or driving in “sando,” shorts, slippers or sandals will pay P300.

The fine is P150 for those who use cell phones while driving or who fail to turn their headlights on at night. Driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs carries the heaviest fine at P2,000.

Except for some minor delays in the setup of the seminar sites, Tolentino said the first day of the measure’s implementation went smoothly.

“The violators we apprehended (today) have been very cooperative so far. But the real results will be seen in about three weeks,” Tolentino said. “If we can reduce the number of accidents we see on Edsa, that is when we can say that our program is successful.”

He said the number of first-day violators was still quite low considering that up to 12,000 motorcycle riders use Edsa every day.

“We expect to sustain these numbers throughout the week-long dry run,” said Tolentino, who personally supervised the first seminar held at White Plains.