A total of 111,208 motorists were apprehended by the Public Safety Department (PSD) of Makati for various traffic offenses during regular road-safety operations in the past nine months throughout the city.
From February to September, a total of 4,430 citation tickets had also been issued during intensive on-street clearing operations in the barangays against illegal parking, illegal vendors and other forms of road obstructions. The operations have been conducted by joint task -force teams composed of PSD and other agencies on the orders of Mayor Abigail Binay.
The mayor earlier directed all concerned government offices to work together to promote “safe and walkable streets” in Makati, which would entail clearing the streets of illegally parked vehicles, illegal vendors and other objects that impede the flow of vehicles and pedestrians.
Binay has also called on barangay officials to ensure safe and walkable streets, particularly by closely monitoring areas already cleared by the joint task-force teams and ensuring that these remain free of any obstruction.
“Our efforts would be futile if the concerned barangay [chairmen] and other officials fail to perform their basic duty of maintaining clean and orderly streets in their respective jurisdictions,” she said.
She reminded barangay officials that, under the Local Government Code, they would be liable for negligence and dereliction of duty should they allow previously cleared areas to be blocked again by vehicles, objects and illegal structures.
The mayor exhorted barangay officials to cooperate with the task force, which is composed of PSD deputies and personnel from the Department of Environmental Services, Department of Engineering and Public Works, Makati Action Center and the Makati Police.
To date, the composite teams have covered 17 barangays in District 1, including Barangays Carmona, Bel-Air, San Isidro, Bangkal, Palanan, Olympia, Poblacion, Tejeros, Santa Cruz, Kasilawan, Pinagkaisahan, Pio del Pilar, Valenzuela, Pio del Pilar, San Antonio, San Lorenzo and Legaspi Village.
In District 2 10 barangays have been covered, namely, barangays Carmona, Bel-Air, Valenzuela, Pio del Pilar, San Antonio, San Lorenzo, San Isidro, Bangkal, Palanan, Olympia, Poblacion and Tejeros.
In its report to the mayor, the PSD tagged the top 3 violations as disobedience to traffic controls and signals with 30,088 tickets, followed by disregarding of lane markings, 19,883 and illegal parking, 13,152 tickets.
Other leading violations included obstructing roads by motor vehicles or stalled vehicles, 11,596; nonuse of seatbelt, 6,340; reckless driving, 1,284; colorum operation of passenger vehicle, 561; and illegal terminal, 97.
From January to August of this year, the PSD has collected over P46.5 million in fines.
Meanwhile, Binay also reiterated her call to the riding public and other concerned citizens to help the authorities maintain road safety and smooth traffic flow by promptly reporting violations and related concerns through My Makati Facebook page and city Twitter accounts: @MakatiTraffic and @Mayora_Abby.
During the mayor’s first six months in office, PSD recorded a total of 63,172 traffic violations in the city.