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| The Tollways Issue |
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| For some years, the Freedom Riders have been fighting to end the life threatening ban against motorcycles using the tollways. |
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| To make our position on the matter clear for all riders, we present this in a question-and-answer format that attempts to treat the issue of motorcycle access to the tollways and its impact on the safety and convenience of the motoring public in a rational and quantitative manner, basing many of our assertions on scientific studies of traffic safety with particular emphasis on motorcycles:
Does the restriction on motorcycles contribute to public safety as claimed by the PNCC, TRB, and DPWH?
No.
The fact is motorcycles are allowed on all parts of the national road network with the exception of the tollways. The restriction only serves to create a substitution effect, which reduces the number of injuries/fatalities on the tollways but serves to increase the number of injuries/fatalities on other roads by an unequal and greater amount.
Why would this be so?
The answer is simple and verifiable: The safest part of any road network for all licensed users is roads where physical obstructions to the flow of travel are minimized. Obstructions take the form of the following:
•fixed objects (road islands, construction barriers, open manholes, parked vehicles, etc.)
•opposing traffic (other vehicles moving alongside adjoining lanes opposite the flow of travel)
•intersecting traffic (other vehicles approaching from intersections or driveways, generally at right angles to the flow of travel) Over 70% of accidents involving motorcycles are caused by vehicles pulling out of, or turning into side turnings in front of the motorcycle.
•speed differentials (other vehicles moving with the flow of travel but at relatively higher or lower speeds to one another)
•pedestrians
•animals (dogs, cats, chickens, etc.)
In the case of the tollways, all known obstructions to traffic are virtually eliminated. The probability of accident on these roads is expected to be much lower for all types of registered vehicles compared to accident probabilities on other roads, such as city streets or two-lane provincial roads. With the restriction, the option of using the safest part of the national road network is not available to motorcyclists. Therefore, motorcyclists are forced onto secondary roads where obstructions are more frequently encountered thereby raising their probability of figuring in an accident.
Does the restriction on motorcycles contribute to public convenience?
No.
Several thousand motorcyclists, members of the general public, are unnecessarily penalized by this restriction.
Does the restriction on motorcycles conform to international and national standards of traffic safety?
No.
Worldwide, transport authorities regard motorcycles as a safe and acceptable form of land transportation. If this were not so, these vehicles would not be legitimized by official registration and the licensing of their operators. In the Philippines, the national government, through the Land Transportation Office (LTO), legitimizes the use of motorcycles on public roads.
Per our research, the Philippines is the only country that does not allow motorcycles on expressways. International transport authorities have long recognized the substitution effect and actively encourage motorcyclists to use the safest part of the road network, often by legislating free access to tollways for this group of road users. As stated in an internal memorandum of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) dated 12 November 1999 from the Road Transportation Planning Division to the Undersecretary of Transportation on the subject, "unnecessary restriction on the operation of motorcycles which do not contribute to highway safety however, are not in accordance with international norms".
Does the restriction on tricycles and bicycles contribute to public safety and public convenience?
Yes.
The tricycle as most often seen in the national setting is a form of public transportation. In terms of efficiency, larger commercial vehicles such as buses best serve public transportation needs along the tollways. On the other hand, both bicycles and tricycles would not be able to keep up with the minimum speeds required for travel on the tollways and would certainly be unnecessary obstructions to other tollways users. The local sidecar-equipped tricycle is also unsafe at highway speeds due to the absence of braking components on the sidecar wheel.
Are motorcycles dangerous?
Like safety, danger must also be defined in quantitative terms before any rational discussion on the subject is possible. There is no question that motorcycles are not as safe as automobiles. However, traffic studies have repeatedly shown that the danger posed by motorcycles is still less than the danger posed by commercial vehicles (large trucks, buses, jeepneys, etc.) to the general public using the internationally accepted safety measure of accident fatalities or injuries per year per registered vehicle type. As a norm, the number of fatalities/injuries caused by commercial vehicles in relation to the number of registered commercial vehicles is significantly higher than the number of fatalities/injuries caused by motorcycles in relation to the number of registered motorcycles.
Another internationally accepted safety measure is accident fatalities or injuries per year per vehicle kilometers traveled. Using this measure, a motorcyclist is normally 10 to 20 more times more likely than a private passenger car occupant to figure in a fatal accident. However, it is also a known fact that motorcycles, on average, do not travel anywhere near the distance associated with cars and commercial vehicles within the same period. An analogy to air travel can be drawn here. Based on air miles traveled, a passenger on board a small private plane is 200 to 300 times more likely to be killed in a plane crash than a passenger on a large commercial jetliner. But just like motorcycles in relation to other motorized land vehicles, the distances traveled by small private planes is only a small fraction of distances traveled by commercial jetliners in any period. In the case of both motorcycles and small private planes, the inherent danger as measured in terms of distance traveled is more than offset by their less intensive use in comparison to alternative forms of transportation.
Without a doubt, motorcyclists are vulnerable users of the road system in comparison to the occupants of other vehicles; however, traffic studies have proven that a number of strategies can be adopted to further improve the safety of this group. Motorcyclists must wear helmets at all times to reduce the seriousness of head injuries and protective clothing such as jackets, gloves, and boots have been shown to further reduce the severity of bodily injuries. The lack of conspicuity is a significant cause in motorcycle accidents, and many countries have mandated that motorcycles travel with their headlights on at all times to improve their visibility to other road users. The same type of countermeasures can be adopted by motorcyclists here in the Philippines.
In fact it is the motorcyclist's recognition of his vulnerability that is probably the greatest reason why motorcycles are involved in far less accidents in the Philippines than any other vehicle type. The motorcyclist is generally concentrating on his riding, his suppoundings and other vehicles far more than a driver of a larger vehicle who feels safe in his protective cage.
Can motorcycles travel safely on the tollways?
Yes.
If judging by international norms and practices and the PNCC‚s existing policy of deploying motorcycle riding traffic enforcers on the tollways. Without a doubt, the PNCC, in upholding "the interest of public safety", would not deploy traffic enforcers on board a type of vehicle it regards as dangerous for use on the tollways.
Before the court ruling, the safety of motorcycles on the tollways has been indirectly proven in four separate, if not entirely legal, ways. The first of these, mentioned earlier, is the daily deployment of motorcycle riding traffic enforcers by the PNCC. The second is the use of the tollways by motorcycle riding officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) for daily commuting purposes. PNCC traffic enforcers would certainly not dare to apprehend these more powerful members of the law enforcement community for violating the rules and regulations of the tollways. The third was the prevalent practice of motorcycle riders‚ clubs to contract the services of a motorcycle riding PNP officer (at a cost of several thousand pesos, none of which goes to the tollway operator) to escort them through the tollways. These clubs have realized that the presence of a PNP officer alongside them on rides renders them essentially immune from apprehension by PNCC traffic enforcers. The fourth was the intrusion into the tollways by private motorcyclists, unaccompanied by PNP "protectors", during hours of the day when apprehension by PNCC traffic enforcers is unlikely due to lax enforcement, usually between midnight and 5 a.m.
Since this was written we succeeded in court action resulting in the Regional Trial Court judge proclaiming the ban to be "illegal and therfore void" and the issuing of a writ of preliminary injunction forbidding the tollways authorities from blocking the access of any motorcycle to any tollway. During the two years the injuncton was in force there were dozens of people killed on the tollways in bus and truck accidents while there were only two accidents involving motorcycles. Both accidents were caused by trucks!
What about minimum engine displacement and gross vehicle weight limits for motorcycles entering the tollways?
Motorcycle rights advocates are generally against such schemes for the simple fact that they deny motorcyclists the freedom of responsible choice. An arbitrary minimum engine displacement limit set too high also penalizes less fortunate riders who cannot afford to purchase or operate the required motorcycle type even if smaller models are still very much capable of operating within the mandated speed limits (60-100 k.p.h. on the tollways). In addition car drivers are not penalized on the tollways for driving small displacement automobiles such as the Kia Pride or the sub-1000cc Daewoo Matiz and Hyundai Atoz, all sold in the Philippines, so why should small bike riders be subjected to a different standard as their 4-wheeled counterparts?
On the matter of gross vehicle weight imparting stability to vehicles, no evidence exists to prove that lighter motorcycles or scooters are unstable at normal highway speeds when traveling alongside larger vehicles or in gusty conditions. Among the most common excuses given to ban small motorcycles or scooters from highways is their alleged susceptibility to wind deflection due to their light weight. Such reasoning does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. Vehicle wind deflection is determined by two factors: gross vehicle weight (more is better) and vehicle surface area exposed to the wind (less is better). While smaller motorcycles and scooters are at a disadvantage because of their light weight, this is offset by their smaller surface area facing the wind.
Is lane-splitting on the tollways safe?
Yes.
The 1981 Hurt Study on motorcycle accident causation factors, recognized by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for many years as the premier scientific study on motorcycle safety, has documented evidence that motorcycles traveling between lanes of stopped or slow-moving cars (i.e., lane-splitting) on multiple-lane roads reduces crash frequency compared with staying within the lane and moving with other traffic. Responsible lane-splitting for motorcyclists is legally acceptable in many countries and is encouraged to reduce traffic congestion and to realize safety benefits.
More recent research on the benefits of lane-splitting is available from numerous sources, including the 1996 ISO/DIS 13232 document and the 2000 National Agenda for Motorcycle Safety prepared by the U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. ISO/DIS 13232 is particularly interesting as it was developed as the global standard to guide passive safety research on motorcycle-automobile impacts. The standard is based on a survey of 501 motorcycle accidents in the USA (Los Angeles) and Germany (Hanover).From the survey, 25 impact configurations were defined depending on the impact point on the car, the impact point on the motorcycle, and the impact angle.
The relative frequency of those impact configurations that could be associated with lane-splitting behavior (5 configurations) is approximately 6% in total. On the other hand, the relative frequency of impact configurations that could be associated with staying within the lane (2 configurations: motorcycle rear-ending the automobile at zero degree impact angle and automobile rear-ending the motorcycle at zero degree impact angle) is approximately 12% or double the accident frequency that could be associated with lane-splitting behavior.
What would be the potential number of motorcycle-related fatalities per year with and without the motorcycle restriction?
To arrive at these figures, we make several reasonable assumptions as follows:
•2,000,000 registered vehicles in the Philippines
•2% of all registered vehicles are motorcycles = 40,000 motorcycles
•Of all registered motorcycles, 50% are for non-commercial use = 20,000 motorcycles
•Of all non-commercial motorcycles, 70% are affected by the tollway restriction = 14,000 motorcycles
•Of all non-commercial motorcycles affected by the tollway restriction, 1 in 1250 would be involved in a fatal accident each year = 11.20 fatalities
•If tollway access is granted, 20% of all motorcycle-related fatalities would occur on the tollways = 2.24 fatalities
The last of these assumptions gives us the increase in traffic fatalities per year that would be expected on the tollways if access were granted to motorcyclists (also equvalent to the reduction in traffic fatalities per year on other parts of the national road system---the substitution effect). However, this is based on a probability of 1 related fatality per 1250 registered motorcycles. The probability here is assumed to represent that for the entire national road system and not for the tollway system where it was stated earlier in this letter that fatality rates are expected to be lower for all registered vehicle types. Therefore, if we were to apply a lower probability of motorcycle-related fatality on the tollways, say 1 in 2500, the figure of 2.24 motorcycle-related fatalities per year on the tollways would actually fall to 1.12. If the restriction on motorcycles were removed, the number of motorcycle-related fatalities per year in the group affected by the issue of access would fall from 11.20 to 10.08, a clear and measurable enhancement in public safety.
We would like to state that the probabilities applied here for estimation purposes were derived from international traffic studies that place motorcycle-related fatality rates per year per 10,000 registered vehicles in a range of approximately 2 (1 in 5000) to 15 (1 in 667).
Was Republic Act No. 2000, also known as the Limited Access Highway Act, meant to restrict access of motorcycles to the tollways?
No.
A careful reading of R.A. 2000 would reveal that nowhere in the said law does it state that motorcycles are to be restricted in any way from limited access facilities. In fact, R.A. 2000, in so far as it identifies any specific type of vehicle, only mentions "trucks, busses, and other commercial vehicles shall be excluded" (R.A. 2000, Section 2) from limited access facilities. The framers of R.A. 2000, unlike the DPWH, were almost certainly well informed on the type of vehicle legally allowed on public roadways that posed the highest threat to public safety per registered vehicle, that is, the commercial vehicle.
Is the restriction supportive of the present Administration‚s pro-poor policies?
No.
Commuters on the tollways (or on any part of the road network) can be divided into two groups: those who can afford the convenience of private transportation and those who must use public transportation. The motorcycle is the most inexpensive and efficient form of private motorized transportation available to the roadgoing public. Given the existence of the restriction, the option of private transportation is limited to those who can afford automobiles. Even the most inexpensive automobile available on the market today costs five times as much as a comparable motorcycle. Therefore, those who can afford the option of private transportation in the form of a motorcycle but not a car are forced to take public transportation should they wish to avail of the convenience of the tollways in getting to their destinations.
The restriction is anti-poor in another way. Since it forces motorcyclists onto secondary roads where jeepney and tricycle operators frequently ply their trade, the occurrence of any motorcycle accident would almost certainly have a greater effect on the economically poorer segments of society who are more reliant on public forms of transportation for mobility.
For a large number of commuters, riding the cheepest form of public transport is more dangerous and more expensive than paying for a small motorcycle and its running costs.
We hope that the preceding discussion has enlightened you on the issues surrounding motorcycle access to the tollways. A supreme court ruling allowing motorcycles onto the tollways would undoubtedly be effective in reducing the number of injuries and fatalities now experienced on the national road system while at the same time enhancing the benefit of the tollways to the motoring public. |
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