Bus drivers should be given FIXED salary. When will the Gov't listen?

Give bus drivers fixed salary = lessen Metro Manila accidents and lessen traffic

Shanghai, China ( Source )

Have you been to Shanghai? Hong Kong? Japan? or any other developed countries? If yes, you would have known how convenient it is to use their public transport. If they are developed countries and we are developing, shouldn't we follow some of the effective things they did? It's a way for us to develop faster, rather than experiment on our own. Why not learn from the mistakes of others and pick up the lessons?



I don't know the exact percentage but a majority of the bus lines here in Manila uses the boundary system.

What's a boundary system? Allow me to quote a fellow blogger:

You put a driver behind the wheel and you tell him his earnings will depend on the number of passengers he picks up. You also make sure he knows there are other drivers like him on the same route who are also out to get as many passengers as they can. Imagine how all of that sets up the driver. (Source: www.betterphilippines.com - Article: It's the boundary system, stupid. )

Using photos I got from the Twitter, I will tell you why those bus drivers need fixed salary.


They are not discplined
 
From what you can see, it is obvious that the bus wanted to get ahead rather than letting the turning van pass. Being undisciplined, the bus driver exhibited the selfish attitude of "ako muna" (me first). This is usually the cause of accidents whether by public or private motorists, but these scenarios happen more on public vehicles because they want to pick-up passengers to increase their earnings.

Bus companies should start treating their bus drivers as employees. What should they be entitled to? Fixed salary and training among others. Train them to be disciplined! It's your property that they are driving, not theirs so they don't care how they drive or if they hit others.


They are causing traffic

Why do you think they want to get ahead of each other? By doing such PLUS not using their brains, they cause traffic. See the actual sample above. See how all those buses cause traffic? Accident or no accident, this is a normal occurrence, usually in EDSA. One bus turning to the left or the right will immediately use up 3 lanes.

If they have fixed salary, this will be lessened.


They think they are right (no pun intended)


2 different angles here. Looking at the photo itself, either of them could be wrong. But remember, the right-most lane has streets and establishments. The 2 cars might have come from there and this is the only way to get back in the correct lane. (Some major roads in Manila have designated bus lanes. If you see the double yellow lane in the image above, only public utility vehicles may use those 2 right most lanes.)

If you ask me who's the wrong one here, I can tell you it's the bus. Yes, the car might be on a double-lined yellow lane. Yes, the car might be really pushy and wanted to go in the correct lane.. BUT look, what is the bus doing in the private lane? AND LOOK, why is the bus occupying the middle of the 3 lanes for the private motorists? This denotes one thing. The bus driver doesn't want to give way. By not giving way, he causes the vehicle next to him to move out to the left most lane, which may cause another accident.


They are using their size to intimidate motorists

I understand the need to giveaway to public transport because they carry far more passengers from one point to the other versus private motorists BUT there is a right way to do it. Do you think blocking all the lanes is the right way? Well, they don't care and as long as they are big, they can scare off other motorists.

Again, why? Of course. To get passengers. Lucky us if he did stop at the right most lane to get passengers. Some of them even stop like that, in the middle of the road to pickup passengers.




Overtaking other buses

See how jam-packed the yellow lane is? It's like a parking lot for buses! What do other bus drivers do? Overtake using the private lane and cut in line in front of the other buses. I bet you that a lot of those buses aren't even full. It only means one thing -- over issuance of franchise transport. Someone should study the maximum number of buses that can ply the EDSA route and cancel some of the franchises issued. This will definitely reduce traffic.

Do you sense the common causes of their mistakes? Scampering.for.passengers.

They think it's a playground

What are you? actors in fast and the furious? (credit Hannah for this comment)

Using EDSA, as a race track and causing accidents? At the end, they'll say that they didn't mean to cause the accident, sorry, blah blah blah. What the hell are you driving so fast for? Don't they know how many tons of solid metal they are maneuvering and they go speed up like insane drivers?

Want more evidence?
Freak accident killing the eye doctor, Dr. Sarabia
Bus slams into a Revo in NLEx

The above links are only 2 of the blog articles I made before regarding those speeding killer buses ( bus crashes into another bus ). If I will make an entire blog featuring bus accidents, maybe I can even post more than 1 article a day just for that topic!


Double standard

Why apprehend private motorists when they go in the yellow lane and not apprehend buses when they get into our lane? As simple as that -- double standard (I know MMDA already improved a lot but still, paging MMDA regarding this matter)


Unmaintained buses
 
I don't know the exact cause of this accident but basing it from the photo (It looks like it's raining), it reminds me of one thing -- Unmaintained buses. First, we import a lot of pre-owned buses from Japan and Korea. (One man's trash is another's treasure) Given that, bus companies should be responsible enough to know how to maintain age-old buses.

Unmaintained buses poses danger to everyone. Usual problem? brakes not working, ending up in an accident that kills/ hurts passengers (Brake failure kills 40). They also add to the smoke pollution problem in our country. There are more reasons and this is because some companies are scrimping on the maintenance to earn more.

(Photo Source)

If bus companies give those bus drivers fixed salary, bus drivers will take care of the buses more because as an employee, if they damage something, it comes out from their pay check. As employees, they are entitled to training to fuel their growth and hoping that they will be more disciplined. Our government should impose this because bus operators won't.

I'm coming out with another article about my ideas on how to improve the public transport system here in Manila soon.

Other interesting article to read:
It's the boundary system, stupid.
MMDA should follow Melbourne Australia

Most images came from MMDA's twitter account.

Just some thoughts,
Cheftonio