Angkas and retail transit

Such motorcycle taxis are also eloquent declarations that our transportation authorities are at wits end to solve the traffic congestion problems.

In the last months since the launch of the provisional trial period for the motorcycle taxi scheme centered on the increasingly popular “Angkas” we have been victimized at least three times by these motorcycle taxis.

Fortunately, all were relatively minor save for one that set us back a good P3,000 — an amount only realized two weeks after the incident. The scrapes were mostly superficial and did not merit thermonuclear ballistic reactions or even the annoying inconvenience of a police incident report or a call to insurance agents. To the benefit of those behind this controversial business, the surrender of motorists to scrapes that go unrecorded and effectively ignored works tremendously for Angkas. It is an aberration inherent albeit hidden in this dangerous business of motorcycle taxis as a mass transportation option.

Someday someone is going to get seriously hurt. Or heaven forbid, someone should die. Maybe then, as is the default, laws and ordinances might be revisited, franchises and licenses suspended, transport officials take to the talk show circuit, and finally, as always, things revert to normal. And Angkas or its various reincarnations are back on the road, weaving in and out, zigzagging between trucks and cars, scraping doors and fenders, or twisting side view mirrors. Until the next causality occurs and the cycle of investigations repeats.

While these riders might have undergone a day-long workshop, a few hours on an obstacle course and some vetting, the reality of the streets and the demands imposed by both expediency and pittance pay from P1,500, peaking at P2,500 daily impose tremendous counter-arguments that render what little training and the lessons they were taught all for naught.

Recidivism rules. And they rule the roads.

The concept behind Angkas is an eloquent and continuing example of how an idea can warp and distort from its origins into a moving violation, an anomaly among the alternative modes in our mass transport system. Such motorcycle taxis are also eloquent declarations that our transportation authorities are at wits end to solve the traffic congestion problems and their abject failure to provide safe, comfortable and rational mass transport systems. Motorcycle taxis are after all, retail transit providers.

Originally conceptualized from Uber’s discontinued services that provided for ride-sharing services not meant to increase vehicles on the road but to provide greater usage from existing vehicles during their idle or downtimes, Angkas has led to even more motorcycles on the road operating, not as ride-sharing transport systems but as virtual retail taxis.

When introduced, Angkas generated controversies ranging from safety considerations on the use of double-rider motorcycles, to unresolved legal issues, and the company’s defiance of an injunction issued by a local court. Now at the end of a six-month provisional period that started in June, Angkas’ services may likely continue as other similar motorcycle taxi service providers have lined up to either compete with Angkas or tweak and take its place.

That the service has provided a much needed option for commuters is not in question. That this option likewise provides a mode of transit that can partially address the gridlock problems as the motorcycles squeeze in between vehicles and snake through standstill traffic is undeniable.

But safety issues remain and the probability of a fatal accident looms where most of the minor accidents are left unreported due the inconveniences of adjudicating, the unresponsiveness of the traffic authorities and the general reluctance of the aggrieved to assert their rights given the costs and benefits involved.

Given the foregoing, it is likely that whatever monitoring of the safety record thus far recorded during the provisional period is likely to be understated to the benefit of Angkas. Because of government’s failures, lives and limbs have been literally placed at risk and recklessly traded off as here is another curse that we are forced to live with.