BARRED A traffic enforcer from San Fernando’s City Public Order and Safety Coordinating Office in Pampanga flags down a driver of an electric tricycle along the national road in San Fernando in this photo taken on Tuesday. —PHOTO COURTESY OF CPOSCO
MABALACAT CITY—Pampanga province’s capital city of San Fernando has started implementing the Land Transportation Office’s (LTO) guidelines banning slow electric motorcycles and tricycles along national roads and major thoroughfares.
The guidelines also require owners of electric vehicles that can travel between 26 and 50 kilometers per hour (kph) to register their vehicles and to have a valid driver’s license when using them.
Since Monday, personnel of San Fernando’s City Public Order and Safety Coordinating Office (CPOSCO) have been pulling over electric vehicles along major roads to inform their drivers about the city government’s implementation of LTO Administrative Order (AO) No. 2021-039.
The first phase of CPOSCO’s campaign against electric bikes and tricycles along the main thoroughfares of the city is a direct and indirect information campaign.
The next stage would be enforcing penalties that include a fine of P1,000 for operating along restricted roads, a P3,000 fine for driving without a license, and a fine of P10,000 for driving an unregistered vehicle.
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AO 2021-039, issued by the LTO in 2021, allows electric vehicles that could travel from 26 to 50 kph to use only barangay roads and the outermost lanes of local roads.
Limitations
These vehicles may only cross-national highways and major thoroughfares but must always yield to or give way to all oncoming traffic.
The same rules apply to microcars powered by electric quadricycle motors. But these could be allowed on tertiary roads, so long as they stay near the edge of the road.
Based on the LTO guidelines, slower electric vehicles, like personal mobility and kick scooters, are allowed only on private roads, walkways and bicycle lanes. Users of these types of e-scooters are not required to have a driver’s license and vehicle registration.
According to the CPOSCO, it has been informing and reminding city residents about the LTO rules and the local government’s decision to implement them for the safety and convenience of all motorists and road users.
Electric tricycles have multiplied in all parts of Pampanga and are being driven along national roads like the busy MacArthur Highway. Most local governments in Pampanga, however, have done little about the growing presence of these electric vehicles made of light materials and which lack safety features, like seat belts. —JUN A. MALIG