| Driving in the Philippines | ||||||||
| After driving here for four months I thought I would give you my prospective. So far I have not been involved in any accidents except for hitting a dog that ran out in front of me. I wasn't able to move to the other lane because a truck was coming towards me and there were people and homes (shacks) a few feet off the road on the right. (Because almost half the population here lives below the poverty line they tend to build woven material and corrugated metal shacks on government property to live in so many of the roads are lined with them.) As a result we had to replace a fog light and the front bumper, most of which was covered by insurance. Actually the cost was quite reasonable compared to the States. The total cost for everything including painting and installation was about $200.
There is only one real rule here and that is there are no rules. People pass on the left and right, sometimes you may have one passing you on both sides at the same time and I have even learned to pass on the right, although I don�t do it very often. People pass on curves as well and solid lines have no meaning to the average driver. On occasion you will also find someone driving towards you on the shoulder of the road to your right. People turning left tend to turn at a 45-degree angle instead of a 90-degree angle so the take a long time to cross your side of the road and they will turn in front of you as if you are not coming towards them. People entering the road from your right will slowly pull out into the road until they block traffic and then continue to slowly move across into the opposite lane. They will even do this in front of you even if after you would have passed there are no more cars coming behind you. Stoplights and signs are only suggestions. Some people use turn signals but many vehicles don't have them. In those instances they may or may not signal a turn. To signal left turns people will wave their left arm usually at something close to a 45-degree angle or stick out their left foot if driving a motorcycle or tricycle. To turn right they may have a passenger signal by waving their arm out the right side of the vehicle. Right of way is determined by who honks or blinks their lights first. Cars, motorcycles, bicycles and people will enter the road from the left or right without looking to see if anything is coming. When you go through an intersection you just slow down and then start to move forward and see if the vehicles coming from the left or right will stop for you. A general rule is the larger the vehicle the more right of way it has but don't count on it. Also if you actually wait to enter a road until it is clear you may find people have gathered in front of your car waiting to cross the road as well and unless you also expect to find people in front of your car you could easily run them over. If you are traveling down the road and see two vehicles approaching and the one behind is gaining on the first one it is wise to flash your lights to signal that you intend to continue on your side of the road. If you don't the other vehicle may decide to pass and flash their lights and expect you to move off the road and/or stop. Few drivers stop at crosswalks so people dodge between the cars. Because of my training I initially started to stop at crosswalks, which tended to confuse the pedestrians. They didn�t know what to expect from me and many won't cross the road in front of me but go behind. In addition I found that cars approaching from behind would simply continue by passing my at high speed and a couple of times pedestrians that were crossing in front of me were almost hit since they couldn�t see the car behind me. So now I just go with the flow. Another irritant, at least to me, is motorcycles. They tend to pass on either side of you and even on the right as traffic is coming towards them. They expect you to move to the side of the road to allow them to get in so as not to get hit. Those on the left will travel down the shoulder of the road and if something is blocking the shoulder they will just move over towards your vehicle. Their front wheel will be ahead of your bumper but they expect you to either move to the left or slow down to allow them in. I�ve seen a number of accidents where the motorcycle driver misjudged the actions of the other driver and got the worst of it. At least you don't get bored driving here. |
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