A former party-list representative from the transport sector revealed that several bus operators since January had been staying away from Skyway because of its low railings and that their fears were once again confirmed when a vehicle fell off the elevated highway last week.
Homer Mercado of the party-list group 1-Utak, himself the operator of bus companies HM Transport and Worthy Transport, said at least 25 city and provincial operators had been staging a virtual “boycott” of the tollway because of safety concerns following the Dec. 16, 2013, accident involving a Don Mariano bus that also fell off and left 21 people dead.
In a phone interview, Mercado said operators plying routes to southern Metro Manila and southern Luzon provinces had been taking only the service roads on South Luzon Expressway for the last three months to avoid a repeat of the Don Mariano incident.
On March 2, the same kind of accident happened, this time involving a shuttle owned by the very company in charge of the highway, Skyway Operation and Management Corp. The vehicle landed on West Service Road after being rear-ended by a Toyota Fortuner. The driver survived the fall.
This ongoing boycott involved around 500 buses, translating to millions of pesos in “lost tollway fees,” Mercado said.
“We questioned the integrity of the barrier. We raised the issue with Skyway and decided that on a certain date, we will stop taking the Skyway as an expression of our protest,” Mercado told the Inquirer in a phone interview.
Mercado recalled that following the Don Mariano accident, concerned bus operators asked if the Skyway management could raise the barriers for added safety for the buses, which are normally three meters high.
“We met with [Skyway president] Manuel Bonoan, but he explained that the barriers already conformed with international standards, that they could handle a sideways collision,” Mercado recalled.
Bonoan could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
In an earlier interview with the Inquirer, former Land Transportation Office chief and now Toll Regulatory Board consultant Albert Suansing made echoed the company’s argument.
Suansing noted that the vehicles that fell off the Skyway collided with the barriers perpendicularly and that the barriers were “not designed for that kind of collision.”
“Should the [Department of Public Works and Highways] redesign them to conform with bad drivers? That doesn’t seem right either,” Suansing then said.
Suansing said an immediate solution to prevent vehicles from falling off the Skyway would be “to address driver behavior.” He also suggested more signs on the Skyway as safety reminders to drivers, “rumble strips” on the road to keep them alert in case they are getting sleepy behind the wheel, and increased mobile patrols.
The TRB would also study lowering the speed limit on the elevated highway, he said.
But for Mercado, “there are no preventive measures. They must address both the infrastructure and the drivers. This is not first time (such accidents) happened.”
Based on Inquirer reports and as confirmed by Mercado, the Skyway shuttle was already the fifth vehicle to have fallen off the elevated highway. The first four were as follows:
A sport utility vehicle that crushed a jeepney in Barangay Magallanes, Makati, in October 2006;
An armored car that fell on at least four other vehicles on Osmeña Highway in January 2007;
A Dimple Star Transport bus that also went “off-road” in Parañaque City, killing three people in July 2011.
And the Don Mariano bus, which left the biggest death toll, in December 2013.
Mercado said his group was supportive of a similar call made the group Citizens Infrastructure Integrity Watchdog (Infrawatch) to raise the Skyway barrier to at least 1.5 meters.
Infrawatch executive director Ricardo Ramos earlier criticized the DPWH for having “no safety standards at all” as shown by the recent accidents. “I challenge the DPWH to show the international standards that it claims to adhere to,” he said. With a report from Miguel Camus