BOKOD, Benguet — Fed up with rising traffic fatalities and unfulfilled government promises, a mountain village in Benguet province is refusing federal orders to remove a roadside coffin installed as a macabre warning to reckless drivers.

Local officials and residents of Barangay Ambuklao placed the donated wooden casket along a treacherous stretch of the Benguet–Nueva Vizcaya Road in Sitio Acnip.

Community leaders say the radical visual was born out of sheer necessity to force motorists to slow down.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Benguet 1st District Engineering Office recently inspected the site and ordered the coffin’s immediate removal, stating it is not an appropriate road signage.

However, barangay chairperson Reynaldo Badibal Tello is standing his ground. Tello said the community will only remove the grim warning once the DPWH installs the permanent, proper safety signs it previously promised.

The standoff comes amid a staggering 170 percent spike in vehicular traffic incidents in Sitio Acnip during the first half of this year alone, a massive surge compared to the seven accidents recorded in all of 2025.

Bokod Mayor Erik Donn Ignacio, local police and area residents have thrown their full support behind the village’s initiative, choosing an unconventional deterrent over continued state inaction.