A traffic enforcer recently got in trouble after a video was taken of him being “rude” to a violator he was apprehending for an violation.
It wasn’t clear how much training or experience the enforcer who went viral had, but it was pretty obvious from the video that it wasn’t enough to help him keep his cool when things apparently didn’t go his way with the traffic violator and his video-enabled wife.
Now, while the traffic violator will be accepting the penalty and the fine, as they should for they have admitted to the offense that triggered the incident, the traffic enforcer is in hot water for the unnecessary words and actions that came forth while he was supposed to be simply doing his job.
If he only kept his cool, the same objective would’ve been achieved, without having to get himself in trouble.
The moral of the story here is that it always pays to keep your cool, especially if you are already doing the right thing. Whatever advantage you have from being right always goes out the door once you lose control of your temper. The Filipino saying for that is “ang pikon, talo”.
Hopefully both the violating jeepney driver and the out-of-control traffic enforcer learned their respective lessons from that incident. May the driver and his like improve his driving to be more professional which means less traffic violations and the enforcer and others like him also focus on improving their professionalism while on the job.
When it comes to training and professionalism, this batch of traffic enforcers look like they have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe it’s just the change in uniform color from red to some kind of white, but most of the Bacolod City’s current crop of enforcers look like they are a bit wet behind the ears.
My impression of traffic enforcers in this island is that they generally seem to make traffic worse and that they seem to hardly make any apprehensions when violations are committed. The former still seems to hold true because the new uniform is still present at the intersection whenever traffic is crawling, which was already the case in the past. I’m not sure if I just have the wrong impression because they could’ve been deployed there because traffic was already bad, and they are not actually making the situation worse, but that’s just my impression regarding their effectiveness when it comes to directing traffic.
As for the impression on the lack of apprehensions, the one good thing that the ill-tempered traffic enforcer issue was able to achieve is that it demonstrated that apprehensions are actually taking place. They might not be done properly, as the video exposed, but if you come to think of it, at least the guy was trying to do his job and catch bad drivers.
Hopefully the apprehensions increase as much as the level of professionalism of the enforcers because our drivers here really do need a good helping of discipline if the traffic situation is going to get better.
And while we are on the topic of professionalism, the training department for traffic enforcers might also want to review its curriculum. Aside from teaching enforcers how to conduct an apprehension, there are also many other bad habits that have to be reviewed and corrected if necessary.
Among the bad habits that get my goat the most is how it is the traffic enforcers themselves encourage counterflowing and cutting corners for left-turners whenever they man intersections or direct traffic. I don’t know if this is trained into them or they just make it up on the fly, but while encouraging these two bad habits does make traffic flow faster for the short term, it also teaches all the wrong things that makes traffic terrible in the long term. If it is ok to violate basic traffic rules when the enforcer says so, complete with pumping hand “go faster” gesture, what do we do when there are no traffic enforcers to catch you? Do the same bad thing of course, until it becomes a habit and we have an island full of counterflowing corner cutters.
A traffic enforcer that cannot control his temper while conducting what should be a routine traffic stop is just the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully whoever is in charge, if they are serious about making things better, takes a deep dive to see just how big that iceberg is and makes the right decisions on how to deal with such a complicated issue.*
