Are we really the victims of traffic?

“Five hours in traffic today.”

“Two hours just to cross from Makati to the Fort.”

“It only takes 3 hours from Manila to Singapore; it took me 3 hours from Naia to QC.”

These are common rants we see on Facebook every day. Everyone is a victim of the horrendous traffic that has been plaguing the metro. We fall victims to the inefficiency of the government’s number coding scheme and useless barrier placement.

We suffer so much on the road. We lose almost 50 percent of day to traffic. We are indeed victims.
A victim is defined as someone who is placed at a disadvantage by a person or situation that seems hopeless.

If you attend self-help courses, you will be familiar with the concept of the victim mentality, when one thinks her life is decided by actions she has no control of.

“I’m poor because I wasn’t born to a rich family.” “I’m fat because I am always stressed.” “I don’t get promoted because my boss hates me.” Everything adverse that happens to you is not your fault; it’s the fault of the cruel world.

I salute those who suffer 4 hours of traffic every day just to go to work. Same goes to those who line up in sun to ride the buses and MRT. But sometimes in times of hardships we need to find the root cause of all this suffering.

Before, traffic was usually really bad during the Christmas season. Nowadays, traffic feels like its Christmas every day without Santa Claus.

Why?

Well for one, there are just too many cars. In the last couple of years, the sales of cars just skyrocketed.
Yes, it is indeed a sign of progress and the strengthened buying capabilities of the citizen, but infrastructure didn’t develop to anticipate the car sales boom.

Why was there an increase in sales? Well, we can also say that this resulted from the following:

1. The coding scheme. To be able to cope up with the government’s effort to try to curb traffic, people who were inconvenienced by the scheme opted to buy another car.

Since owning a car is so easy nowadays, it was a viable option.

2. Lack of good mass transport. This would have been the alternative when you have coding days, but the sheer volume of commuters that lined up every day made it such an inconvenient option for people with money.

3. Uber/Grab last year. The lure of profits utilizing the app-based car sharing business model was so enticing that most people enrolled.

It also doesn’t help that the taxis around were so messed up, that Uber had become such a convenient and safer alternative.

So how does all this connect?

Well, in an ideal situation these alternatives should have resulted to:

1. People doing carpools on days they were “coded.” This would have resulted in having fewer cars on the streets.

2. People are able to ride the MRT and use the bus, making buying a second vehicle an inconvenient and pricey option.

3. Uber was intended to make carpooling convenient. You hitch a ride with someone already going in the same direction, thus saving gas and lessening the cars on the road.

Instead, though, it became a taxi service, which only added more cars in the streets aimlessly looking for passengers, and further adding more gasoline emissions.

Another issue we have about traffic is the drivers’ lack of discipline. You would often see photos of cars, buses, and jeepneys at a bottleneck because people just couldn’t line up and wait for their turn.

Instead of falling in line, they will cut in the queue and attempt to get ahead of all others.

How about double parking on an already busy road because it’s convenient to do your errands?

Here is another reason: not taking turns at an intersection, hence creating a gridlock.

I could give you more vivid examples but I think you get the picture. And if you are wondering what is the point of all these, well, it’s time to realize that we are all part of the problem of traffic.

For our convenience, we have forsaken all the courtesies and refused to be part of the solution.

We expect everyone else to follow the rules, but feel that we need to be an exception to the rule.

We all curse at the person who counterflows but see nothing wrong when we do it because we have a reason: “I am in a hurry.”

In a self-help class, there will be that moment when you realize that yes, you are responsible for everything that is happening in your life because you chose to look at the objective world through the tinted glass of your biases and opinions.

You realize that what happens in your world depends on how you wish to react to the situation.
If we all stop thinking that we are victims of traffic, and realize that we all contributed to it, then maybe we can help control its rabid effects on our lives.

Organizing carpools, lining up and waiting for your turn, thinking about how your actions will affect the world and not just zeroing in on profit, planning your trips, being courteous, teaching family and company drivers how to be better drivers, and teaching by example—this is what we should be doing.

The government is also doing its share. There are a lot more traffic enforcers on the road. More infrastructure projects are ongoing, and although they create a lot of grief now, their completion will result in more usable roads.

I think this is the right time to understand that change begins with us. It will not be easy. It will get harder before it gets better.

Both sides will not work if one fails to cooperate with one another.

Yes, we might be a victim, but we are victims of our own selfishness and fear of being inconvenienced.
It is time to stop this nonsense and be in control.