By George Royeca / Wheels of misfortune
THERE are 18 million motorcycles in our country, compared to only 3 million cars. Of those, 12 million are not registered with the LTO, and over 99 percent are owned by middle- to low-income households. A 2018 SWS Survey showed that one in three households own a motorcycle, with most citing the vehicle as the family’s critical mode of daily transport and as many as 51 percent depending on it for their livelihoods.
Where many of us more privileged own cars to get around, the truth is many of our countrymen carry their lives and families on top of two wheels: that is how dad brings the kids to school, the wife to work, and himself to his own job. As most households make less than P20,000 a month, a motorcycle costing only a P3,000 down payment and a monthly amortization of even less is the obvious choice.
As the need for mobility has increased motorcycle sales have boomed, with nearly 1.6 million units sold just last 2018, and 1.7 million projected for 2019. But even as new brands and dealerships open across the country, almost no formal and professional training programs exist to educate these new owners on how to operate their machines on the roads. To date, there is only one motorcycle safety school in the country—the Honda Safety Driving Center, which can barely hold over a hundred students at a time. So many schools for car drivers exist, but no investments are made for motorcycles, even as they outnumber cars six to one.
This lack of formal training, coupled with our country’s lax rules for motorcycle ownership—you don’t need to show a license to take the bike out of a dealership—has led to 53 percent of road accident deaths to be motorcycle-related, in large part due to causes that could have been prevented with a bit of education. According to the WHO, 90 percent of motorcycle-related deaths are due to simply not wearing a helmet, something many Filipinos take for granted from a lack of proper training.
But can we really blame them when access to critical training and educational resources is so scarce, while the barriers to ownership are so low? When ownership of such vehicles is such a key necessity for their family’s well-being and economic mobility? Would it truly be fair to simply say “they should have known better”?
Before opening my own eyes to this reality, I used to be quick to call reckless motorcyclists on the roads as kamote, implying with the name-calling their own irresponsibility for how they conduct themselves. And while I make no excuses for these reckless drivers (there are after all many responsible motorcyclists out there), it helps no one to ignore the very broken system through which they came about.
There is no easy fix to this of course. You cannot simply educate 18 million motorcycle owners overnight, and you certainly cannot change the horrible road culture we have here (car drivers included) just like that, but we need to try. Until recently, I myself had been living oblivious to the plight of our countrymen, and was content with ignoring them from the comfort of my car.
With the increasing problem of urban congestion in recent years and of the corresponding rise in ride-hailing, e-commerce, and food-delivery platforms, such as Angkas, Food Panda, Grab Food, Lalamove, Lazada, and Shopee, there is a growing appreciation among Filipinos of how fundamental motorcycles have become to our daily lives. Where they used to only be transport for the poor (and the toys of a rare few hobbyists), motorcycles are more and more being recognized as an important driver of all our lives. As I have personally gotten involved in the operations of Angkas, I have come to work with tens of thousands of bikers, and have realized how limited my perspective has been.
To ensure the safety of our passengers, we at Angkas have worked tirelessly to ensure that all the bikers applying to join us—even those we eventually reject—get free and ample training and professional instruction from some of the best teachers in the country. In this way, we can ensure a better riding experience for those booking Angkas rides, and if nothing else, our safety record of 99.997 percent (or a 0.003-percent accident rate) is proof that a little professional help can go a long way.
Having worked closely with the government on this, we have successfully trained over 100,000 bikers across many cities in the country, and working with them to further expand such education in government-run programs, so more Filipinos can benefit, even those not involved with Angkas.
While motorcycle safety naturally aligns with the business interests of a company like Angkas, it holds true for every other motorcycle-driven enterprise. For food delivery and e-commerce companies for example, improperly trained drivers also result in the loss and destruction of property, and while perhaps rarer, can also involve injury and death to pedestrians and other road users. And even where no such direct damage may be done, seeing your brand’s bikers zip by in the streets recklessly is never a good image.
If more companies can take a page from this, I am confident, that with the increasing awareness of the need for biker safety training, the government in conjunction with the private sector can put more effort into introducing new measures to increase motorcycle safety on the road by emphasizing biker education above all other motorcycle-related policies. So yes, while the system is indeed broken, I am hopeful that little by little, we can headway to ensure our roads motorcycles are safer for everyone.