MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang on Saturday threatened severe measures on reckless bus drivers after another bus accident killed University of the Philippines professor and journalist Lourdes Estela-Simbulan on Commonwealth Avenue Friday night.
SPEED LIMIT VIOLATOR. A laser speed gun set up by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City measures the speed limit of vehicles and found this one to be way above the 60 kph limit. MMDA FILE PHOTO
Asked if a crackdown on reckless bus drivers may be expected, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said, “We really need that.”
“We don’t want another person to die because of such things. I would imagine [Metro Manila Development Authority] Chairman Francis Tolentino would be reviewing what else can be done to the bus drivers,” Valte said in an on-air news briefing on radio.
It was the MMDA that imposed a 60-kilometer per hour speed limit on Commonwealth Avenue.
Commonwealth Avenue has been called a “killer highway” because of numerous fatal accidents involving speeding vehicles.
Early this week, Aquino signed Proclamation No. 159, which sets 2011 as the launch year of the Philippine Road Safety Action Plan for the next 10 years.
The Philippine action plan was unveiled Wednesday to coincide with the kick-off of the first global launch of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration.
In Metro Manila, deaths from road accidents reached 380 in 2010, according to the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority. Across the country, the Philippine National Police Highway Patrol Group has recorded a total of 14,487 vehicular from January to October last year.
Road crashes globally kill an estimated 1.3 million people each year and experts consider road and traffic mishaps to be more fatal than malaria as these continue to be the leading causes of many deaths, physical injuries, devastating damages and disabilities around the world.
The alarming statistics on road deaths prompted the United Nations General Assembly to approve a resolution in March 2010 declaring 2011-2020 the Decade of Action for Road Safety. With a report from INQUIRER.net