Step on the brakes, LTO

Road rage is a vulgar thing, as it strips men bare, turning ordinary people into gladiators armed with whatever is within reach, whether fists, bats, or a particularly foul mouth. While road rage deserves punishment, those dishing out the same should know that punishment, like anger, has a way of going too far.

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) should take note of this.

In a viral altercation between two motorists, LTO chief and Assistant Transportation Secretary Markus Lacanilao has drawn his sword high, ordering the permanent revocation of the driver’s license of one of the protagonists.

Here, let’s allow reason to interrupt momentum, and let’s step on the brakes.

Indeed, traffic was blocked, tempers flared, and one man brandished a baseball bat, that universal symbol of macho foolishness. But another man did not. He fought back with his fists and won. Yet suddenly, victory itself is being treated as guilt?

That’s kind of unsettling, especially since the victor, reports showed, had his car bashed with that baseball bat by his nemesis.

The two men have since settled their quarrel — no criminal charges were filed, no blood was spilled, no bones were broken, and, let’s be a little dramatic here, no graves were dug.

As it stands, the LTO has imposed a punishment harsher than what many convicted criminals endure, economic death. The permanent revocation of a driver’s license is not a slap on the wrist, and it is more than a broken arm.

Rather, it is akin to amputation, representing the quiet removal of bread from the table, of dignity from work, of tomorrow from a man who drives to live and knows no other means of survival.

We are told by the LTO that he is a former amateur boxer, as if that matters, as if skill were a crime, and as if the law punishes muscle memory instead of misconduct.

Should we now require drivers to declare their athletic histories before renewing licenses, boxers to the back of the line, runners next, weightlifters after? The law does not work that way, or at least, it should not.

Permanent revocation exists for monsters of the road, repeat offenders, drunk drivers who kill, drug users behind the wheel, and those who falsified documents that served as the basis for the issuance of a license.

Revocation is meant for patterns, not moments, for menace, not mistakes. What we have here is not a pattern, but a lapse. Okay, maybe a bad day, human failure in a country that produces plenty of them daily, often courtesy of hellish traffic itself.

The LTO is right to assert authority, for we cannot allow mayhem on the streets. It would be derelict for the LTO not to suspend licenses, impose fines, mandate seminars, and demand accountability.

Still, the LTO should consider revocation becomes more than discipline over a fistfight and obstruction of traffic. The Constitution does not require the state to be gentle, but it does require it to be fair.

The message that road rage has consequences is necessary. The message that punishment has limits is just as important. Discipline should correct behavior, not erase futures.

The road, like the Republic, is crowded enough with wreckage. We do not need to add another life flattened by excessive righteousness. Sometimes, the most powerful act of the state is not to punish harder, but to punish wisely.