The “Walang Tawiran, Nakamamatay!” warning signs are part of the Metro Guwapo program of former MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando, one of his attempts to install discipline and order in the city streets. The signboards are well-meaning and truthful -- many pedestrians have indeed been killed by rushing vehicles while crossing the streets. Inquirer.net reports that more deaths have resulted from street crossings than from vehicular accidents.
As a city driver, I have had my own near-death experiences in EDSA trying to avoid crossing pedestrians. I remember once almost crashing my car into the middle island while trying to avoid hitting an intrepid pedestrian in the middle of the highway. Any city driver knows that there are a lot of “booby traps” out there in the highway, not the least of which is in the form of complacent pedestrians. They cross the streets blissfully unaware of the dangers that await them. Some do so with reckless abandon and daring, which can cause sudden traffic disturbance and vehicular collisions at the very least or kill them at worst.
If people die crossing the streets, then we may not be any better than the cats run over by vehicles in the streets of Metro Manila. How often do we see those lifeless felines in the middle of the road, their bodies flattened by the wheels of vehicles?
To curb these senseless accidents, the MMDA put up the “Walang Tawiran, Nakamamatay” signboards. But then, instead of minimizing the accidents, the signs even became a challenge to many pedestrians. The signboards are being blatantly ignored by pedestrians.
One day, I spent several hours standing along the side of EDSA/Monumento to observe people who actually use the nearby footbridge instead of crossing the street. EDSA is the busiest in the metro with an average of 2.34 million vehicles passing though it everyday. Thus, there is a very real possibility that vehicles may hit a crossing pedestrian who may be ignorant of the prohibition against pedestrians crossing there. Each side of EDSA has a five-vehicle lane berth, so that a crossing pedestrian needs to pass through a total hurdle of ten vehicle lanes in order to get to the other side.
It is baffling why many people would risk life and limb by ignoring the warning signs and possibly get hit by a truck, when there is a footbridge nearby. For many people, crossing the street is an essential everyday activity for a variety of reasons: to buy something from the store across the street, to go to and from work, to run some errand. As already mentioned, crossing the street entails real danger, as Metro Manila drivers -- especially those of passenger buses and jeeps--tend to flirt with the upper range of the legal speed limit. The impact of a speeding multi-ton steel structure on heavy rubber wheels against the human body results in almost 100 percent fatality, if not multiple serious internal injuries.
EDSA and Commonwealth Avenue, more than any other highways in the country, are where speeding passenger buses weighing no less than 8 tons and speeding more than 100 kilometers per hour have been known to take the lives of pedestrians.
Why do people ignore footbridges? I doubt if they could not read the huge signs. They are all written in Tagalog and emblazoned with huge bold letters. To satisfy my curiosity, I interviewed some violators after they successfully crossed the street without being hit by vehicles. Here are the two most frequent answers I got: a) they were in a hurry, i.e., using the footbridges would take a lot of their time and b) the footbridges are too tiring to use, i.e., the stairs are too high and too steep.
To find out if these excuses were valid, with a clock in my hand, I timed a pedestrian who crossed EDSA and another who used the footbridge. The pedestrian who opted to cross without using the footbridge took over three minutes alone waiting for the rush of vehicles to dwindle, and when it did, he ran across the street and made first base in the middle of the highway. He then waited five minutes waiting for the vehicle traffic on the other side to ease, then ran full speed to avoid the speeding motorists. Total time consumed crossing EDSA? Ten minutes.
I then turned my attention to a pedestrian who used the footbridge (and did not stop to buy anything from the numerous vendors he would pass on the way). Climbing the steep stairs took one minute, walking from one side to of EDSA to the other took him five minutes, and descending the stairs 1 minute, a total of 7 minutes.
Thus I concluded: crossing EDSA by means of the footbridge can actually save more minutes than running like a crazy person across the street and violating who knows how many city ordinances against jaywalking.
I then asked the folks why they regularly use the footbridges , the answers were always identical: climbing the footbridge is safe and gives them a good form of exercise. They would not risk their lives just crossing the streets.
Many remarked that the signboards “Walang Tawiran, Nakamamatay” was actually too passive. The typically skeptical Pinoy may be hard pressed to believe it is indeed deadly, unless they get run over by vehicles themselves or have seen people actually being hit by speeding buses and trucks.
Thus the MMDA, under new Chair Oscar Inocentes, decided to replace the passive and futuristic “Walang Tawiran, Nakamamatay” signboards, with a more realistic “Bawal tumawid, may namatay na dito (No pedestrian crossing, people have already died here)" signboards.
Inocentes said the new signs would be more effective because it would underscore the fact that a fatal accident had already occurred instead of the old one which only warns of imminent danger. They would also be painted in bright red with big large white letters so that people would see them even from afar. Whether these new warning signboards will not challenge daring and erring pedestrians all the more still remains to be seen.
In an internet forum discussing these new signboards, forum members didn’t sound very satisfied with the change. Some mentioned the possibility that pedestrians would feel more devil-may-care. Others conjured up their own signboards, in jest, of course, but undoubtedly manifesting exasperation over the lack of discipline of fellow Pinoys.
I only hope that MMDA Chair Inocentes will not be exasperated enough to replace the new "Bawal tumawid, may namatay na dito" signs with these:
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