Traffic Enforcers Cause Traffic

Couldn’t think of a wittier title but that pretty much sums it up.

I was taking JP Rizal on the way to work this morning.  Traffic was moderately slow, as it usually is, owing to the large number of jeepneys who don’t really care where they park their old rustbuckets. They must all be blind on the right eye because they can’t stick to one lane and don’t seem to be able to stop their jeeps near the curb without blocking at least two lanes, yet they are able to forcefully swerve and cut onto the left, even against oncoming traffic, with relative ease.  I don’t know what it is with that road but taxis and private cars also seem to like taking their sweet time driving along it.  Anyway, there was no police officer or traffic enforcer in sight which is not surprising given that they have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and never being where you need them to be.  I guess they realised that JP Rizal was a lost cause.

After significant frustration and horn-honking, I was able to make my way to South Avenue which, unfortunately, wasn’t any better.  Traffic was backed-up almost all the way to JP Rizal, and the only reason was that the cars on South Avenue couldn’t cross Kalayaan Avenue because the jeepneys, this time traversing Kalayaan, would not give way.  It would have been good to have some sort of law enforcement in that area but, like I said, it seems like they are repelled by the distinct possibility of contributing to society.

Obviously, I was able to make my way across Kalayaan through to the end of South Avenue where it meets with the inexplicable intersection of Ayala, Kamagong, Jupiter and Zobel Roxas.  It’s that intersection where they were supposed to put up some ambulatory care center but a BPI sprung up instead.  How dubious is that?  It’s that intersection where Kamagong becomes Ayala, Jupiter becomes Zobel Roxas, Ayala becomes South Avenue. Anyway, at that intersection, I had to turn right into Zobel Roxas, drive straight past the Total station and make a left on Sacred Heart and make another immediate left on Kamagong to get to Ayala Avenue.  This pretty much where all hell broke lose and, guess what, there were no less than six Mapsa officers in the area with four of them just bumbling around, not to mention that the Makati police station is just around the corner.

Anyway, the intersection of doom was in a virtual grid-lock and the boys in yellow pretty much couldn’t figure it out.  I mean, it’s tough enough for them to manage your standard two-street intersection, but it must’ve been such a stretch for them to handle that situation that not even six heads could comprehend it.  There was this officer on the Kamagong-Bagtikan intersection who was waving cars on both streets to go.  The four bumbling idiots I previously mentioned were just on the other side of the street, with one of them making the "hurry up" sign - a lot of help in that situation.  To complicate things even further, there was a police car trying to cross from Ayala to South Avenue, even when a car was halfway to making a left from South Avenue to Jupiter, had to force his way through thus causing that particular intersection to jam and hence more traffic ensued.

I happened to live near that area not too long ago and I distinctly remember that intersection was fairly manageable without them.  Despite the undisciplined driving habits of Filipino drivers, they seem to be able to sort things out naturally in traffic.  Only when traffic authorities decide that there’s a traffic problem does a traffic problem actually start to occur.  Only in very specific circumstances is the presence of a traffic officer actually really required.