OPINION: Zebra Lanes

Alni Emphasis

              Also known as “zebra lanes” for their white horizontal lines painted alternately on streets, pedestrian lanes are often taken for granted for. They are the allocated places where people can cross safely in a busy road. They are also the places where drivers are to be more cautious since anyway, they have already been given the freedom to rush in the in places without these lanes.

                 Hurrying for my next class in the Arts and Sciences building, across UP Cebu’s main campus, I, along with my classmates, patiently waited for all the rushing vehicles to pass by. Driving on a school zone area, those drivers of different kinds of vehicles are instead rushing and even competing. “Please just let us cross first!” I murmured discreetly. Facing a zebra lane in front of me, I wondered: “How exactly have we been implementing our pedestrian laws these days?” I just don’t understand why vehicles can’t just slow down to give way to the pedestrian when in the Presidential Decree 1958, pedestrian lanes “oblige motorists to give way to pedestrians.”

              Elsewhere in Cebu, I’ve also seen some pedestrian lanes, which aren’t also respected by the rushing vehicles: One in Jones Ave., Cebu City between Samsung Service Center and PLDT, another in P. del Rosario St., Cebu City between ELICON Hotel and GMT Bldg. and many more; Also somewhere in Mindanao, in the province of Misamis Occidental - where I am originally from.  Many, if not all of our pedestrian lanes there are ignored.

              These lanes are a person’s right of place to cross on streets. As what Chapter IV, Traffic Rules, Article III, Right of Way and Signals, Section 42(c) states, “The driver of any vehicle upon a highway within a business or residential district shall yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing such highway within a crosswalk, except at intersections where the movement of traffic is being regulated by a peace officer or by traffic signal. Every pedestrian crossing a highway within a business or residential district, at any point other than a crosswalk, shall yield the right of way to vehicles upon the highway.”

              So why are there still many accidents involving pedestrian lanes and speeding vehicles? Is it simply because of the ignorance of this law? Is it because we’re just undisciplined citizens? Or is it because Filipinos have become too inconsiderate and impatient to obey the law for another’s’ benefit? It’s the safety of the people crossing and the probable damage it would incur to the driver.  Actually, to respect the commanding presence of the pedestrian lanes is a win-win situation to both parties- to the driver and to the pedestrians. 

              How we respond to our laws also reflects our character as Filipinos. If other countries, who also have these strict implementations on the road can follow the rules, why can’t we?

For a law to successfully function, cooperation of its people is needed.

              I think it’s about time to check our attitude towards the laws. We always demand for this and that kind of law but we never fully grasp what we already have.

              I will be crossing again the same crosswalk tomorrow. I know change does not take place overnight. However, I and my schoolmates can’t keep waiting on vehicles to pass and worrying to be late in our next classes.