Future-proofing the safety of Filipinos and motorcycles
We were in the Power Plant Mall the other morning for the launch of the Gaston Luga pop-up and I realized it was actually very quiet. At first I thought it was because it was all just electric cars around us but then I realized they weren’t all electric. They were just all relatively modern. So as much as I really enjoy the quietness of electric cars, a lot of the more modern cars even with internal combustion engines are pretty quiet as well.
This means that across the board things are getting better with one large exception which is motorcycles. Now we completely understand the need for motorcycles and their importance in a growing economy and a moving economic segment but just as cars no longer need loud exhausts to become faster or more efficient, neither should motorcycles and that shouldn’t be allowed either.
We’re coming quicker and quicker into a convergence where these two forces are going to have an increasing number of high profile incidents and accidents. We’re going to need to address this because in all honesty it’s our kids that are going to be hit by this when they’re driving and they get overwhelmed by traffic that honestly was never like this.
As someone who used to ride a motorcycle to school I completely understand what motorcycles need to do to be safe, but we’re moving past that already into situations where it’s just becoming increasingly and needlessly unsafe. And more and more often nowadays, the problems caused by one two-wheeler come from another two-wheeler who’s forced a car out of the way and squeezed into the area of one motorcycle because of another.
Motorcycles are, to the displeasure of many people, a key indicator of economic growth and upward economic mobility. And in many many ways they help handle the move of people that cannot be done yet by mass transit in a proper way. So we need to find a common ground that keeps everybody safe and alive and with their hearing unimpaired.
