Quote Originally Posted by wally
Yup, the exploding number of tricycles is indeed very worrying and annoying. There are virtually no standard rules in regulating trikes, so what can we expect, chaos to the max. The deployment of tricycles to the road is left to the Local Government officials who shamelessly abet all the violations which eventually lead to traffic, gridlock and accidents. Local Governments do not even keep a standard checklist of the trikes running in the streets, what more with their road-worthiness and the driving skills of the driver.

I have tried confronting a local TODA (tricycle operators-drivers association) which suddenly established an illegal terminal right in front of our house, pero ayun ako pa ang napahiya when an association official sporting a vest bandied a “special permit” issued by city hall. They even rubbed it in by claiming that it was no less than the local congresswoman who lobbied for them, proof to this is the tent that they set-up by the roadside emblazoned with the congresswoman’s name. It didn’t matter if the money used to buy it was came from our taxes nor did it occur to them that they had inconvenienced several households and created a traffic jam at critical hours during the day.

I tried getting in touch with the police, pero they reasoned out na sa LGU daw ang control ng mga trike, so back to square one. Talked to a Baranggay official and was told to grin and bear it kasi nga daw it was better for all of these people to at least earn an honest living driving trikes rather than robbing the daylights out of our houses! Pasalamat pa daw ako!

So I guess we have to live with our unfortunate lot, even if the terminal is illegal we have to turn a blind eye. Some adjustments that have to be made in our lives include, getting used to the stench of urine after trike-drivers converted our sidewalk into a toilet; learning to enjoy the loud pinoy big brother song which they continuously play with their makeshift subwoofers; learning to wait and smile whenever we back-out of our garages lest you get the lights beaten out of you if you get confrontational; getting used to parking our cars hundreds of meters away from our houses and best of all being served a solicitation notice whenever an trike association member gets sick or dies of liver cirrhosis due to excessive drinking of emperador brandy. Anyway dito naman daw sa harap ng bahay naming nangyari ang inuman.

With the soaring trike population, it will just be a matter of time that they will be able to elect a sectoral representative into Congress who will fight for the interests of this “marginalized” sector. So it would be best for me to be in my best behaviour whenever I encounter them, who knows baka ako pa ang inominate nila na representative!

you paint a dim picture for all of us but very true. it wont be long at lalo pa dadami ang tricycles. sa dami ba naman ng batang kalye ngaun sa kalsada, a fraction of them will drive tricycles when time comes.

kaya ako gumagawa na ng backup plan, kung dati yun migration is the farthest thing in my mind, ngaun pasagi-sagi nasa isip ko. sayang lang pagod building something here, i have this keen sense na babalikan tayo ng nature sa mga pinagagawa natin sa surroundings natin.

kahit ano system in place, no matter how effective or how ingenius, papalpak at papalpak pag sobrang dami na at uncontrollable pa ang pagdami.