LET’S go back to our traffic woes again. I am compelled to, as the Philippines was recently in the world news anew on road concerns—mostly nerve-frazzling.
One, in a Waze survey a while back, the Philippines came out as the world’s third-worst place to drive a vehicle.
I’m sure you know what Waze is. It’s that app in your cell phone that is supposed to help you get to your destination in the shortest traveling time possible. Waze’s recommended route will usually direct you to a traffic-free journey.
But still, I do not use Waze.
I do not know how to use it.
I do not intend to know how to use it.
Enough that I am comfortable with my old, Jurassic ways.
I don’t know. I feel Waze will just waste my time as I read its krokis. Always, I labor decoding road maps that I find puzzling like the New York Times’s crossword puzzle.
Stickler I am on habits. Traffic or no traffic, they make my mobility on course, pleasantly, most of the time.
Yes, as “Terrific Tugade” said: “It’s just a state of the mind.” My compadre Tugade treats traffic quite correctly: It is a major enemy of the economy and is, therefore, inimical to national interest.
Traffic gives you a choice: Fight it or take it with a grain of salt.
I prefer the second, as Team Tugade takes serious aim always at unearthing miracle after miracle to fix traffic, not only in the metropolis, but the entire nation, as well.
From my place now going to BGC or Makati, I always take traffic-laden Edsa. Crazy? I gamble.
I lean on the fact that on Edsa, there isn’t a single traffic light to bother me from SM North all the way to either Global Fort or Ayala Avenue, Makati.
You get used to slow drag—two hours, three hours, on the road. (State of the mind thing, you know, thanks to Tugade again.) A routine becomes a way of life. Nice if you like it; sorry if you don’t.
Forget about a 17-minute trip from Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, to BGC in Taguig at 2 in the morning.
Luxuries get to be thrashed once in a while. They’d come back, for sure. Just you wait.
We crawl now most of the time at Edsa. Good enough. At least there’s movement. Gridlock? Grin and bear it when it comes. Turn on the radio. Sing.
Now, to Waze again.
Surveyed a while back were some 50 or so million Waze users in 32 countries. Result? Waze came up with the world’s first “Driver’s Satisfaction Index.”
See? There’s still satisfaction amid road chaos. Life’s not always a bed of roses.
Two, Waze found that Metro Manila had the worst traffic in 2015 and the longest commute time.
Three, Philippine traffic this year was the world’s second-worst after El Salvador.
Four, Cebu City, and not Manila, was ranked lowest in traffic condition among 186 cities surveyed in the world.
And five, Metro Manila, cellar-dweller in 2015, climbed to 147th this year.
Does the improvement matter? Ummm. Better than nothing.
It might put a smile on the lips of a-tisket Tugade.
PEE STOP Toyota’s Vios Cup finale might yet be held on November 10 and 11 to give way to Manny Pacquiao’s fight on November 6 in Las Vegas. By practice, practically the country’s entire motoring media are at Lexus Showroom in BGC, assembled no less by Lexus President Danny “Sir John” Isla to watch every Pacquiao fight. You can’t fight tradition, indeed…Honda’s all-new BR-V, its newest seven-seater SUV, was a hit during the recent sixth PIMS at the World Trade Center Manila. It will be on display again beginning today up to September 25 at the Lucky Chinatown Mall at 293 Lachambre Saint, Binondo, Manila; September 27 and 28 at the Honda Cars Manila Bay; and, September 30 to October 2 at Honda Cars Rizal, San Juan, Cainta, Rizal; and Honda Cars San Pablo National Highway, Barangay San Nicolas, San Pablo, Laguna…. I struggled to beat the deadline, as I had barely started writing this when I was knocked off my chair upon receiving the news that my brother had passed on. I know that life is short, that you will never know when the “thief of the night” would come a-visiting. But my Kuya Onie was my fourth straight sibling to “go on leave” the last four years. Ugh, to lose one each year from 2013 to 2016. Just plain painful.