The head of the Bacolod City Police Office Traffic Division sustained bruises in his arms and wounds on both his legs when four trisikads ran over him at the corner of Rizal-San Juan streets at about 6:45 a.m. yesterday.

Chief Insp. Levy Pangue said he was standing near the Police Precinct 1 when a trisikad, whose driver was trying to avoid traffic enforcers, hit him. Before he could even recover from his fall, three more trisikads tailing the first ran over him.

I was standing beside the road when the fleeing trisikads hit me. It happened so fast, he said. Until last night, Pangue said they were not able to identify the drivers who ran him down.

He said the traffic enforcers had actually no intention of apprehending the trisikad drivers. They only want to remind them not to exceed their boundaries, he said, because the Traffic Division has been receiving several complaints that trisikads are already plying the busy streets around the City Hall, the Bacolod Plaza and the San Sebastian Cathedral.

I went to the downtown area purposely to remind the trisikad drivers not to go beyond their boundaries, Pangue said. But apparently because he experienced first-hand the nuisance caused by trisikads in the downtown area, with bruises and wounds, that is, he changed his mind.

Pangue immediately ordered all other trisikads plying the area rounded up and brought to the Bacolod City Police Office.

The result: 150 trisikad units impounded at the BCPO compound.

Pangue said the trisikads will only be released to the owners if they could present their business permits and driver's licenses.

"We have gone to the barangays to educate them but they continue to violate the rules," he said.*CGS

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