Bus drivers fixed salary = Lessen accidents and lessen traffics

For years, we keep on haunting solutions in order to turn into a convenient public transport our roads and highways. But still we failed find one and what only happens is an increasing figures of accidents in the country’s thoroughfares.

Road accidents are considered as the top cause of casualties here in the Philippines. Every year PUV’s or Public Utility Vehicles grows in number of involvement to these accidents. Though the government had devised various ways to lessen these road risk, the figures is still outnumbered especially with the buses (popularly known as the King of the Road) causing the major dilemma.

In response to this matter, the congress had recently passed a bill mandating all bus operators to give fixed salaries above the minimum wage to their bus drivers. Serious discussions involving agencies such as the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and the Department of Labor and Employment on the implementation of fixed salaries had been going on since the middle of last year.

The bill had been eyed as the deterrent to get rid of the high rate of road accidents involving buses and the boundary system. The boundary system is  where drivers usually speeding along major thoroughfares to pick up passengers and meet their "boundaries," a percentage of which has long been the basis of what they took home as their pay. However, the aftermath causes lot of traffics since buses usually get ahead of each other to gather more passengers and increase their earnings. What comes next is an occurrence or not of accidents or a heavy traffic caused by a bus that blocks all the other lanes especially in EDSA.

Under this new rule which is welcomed with an open hand by LTFRB, DOTC and DOLE officials, drivers and conductors should not be allowed to work more than eight hours every day to ensure that they are well-rested while on the job. Their salaries should also be “above minimum wage. And like all employees in other industries, bus drivers and conductors should now be entitled to a 13th-month bonus. This serves as an abolition of the commission system that would tend to eliminate competition among drivers for passengers, which usually results in reckless road behavior.

With this, buses would not need to scare off by their size the other motorists and could somehow lessen the everyday jam packed yellow lane just to fetch passengers. Also, a number of buses speeding the road are unmaintained which poses more dangers to accidents and might killed its passengers. We import a lot of pre-owned buses in Japan and Korea and it might be considered somehow as a trash. So, it is the responsible of bus companies to give proper maintenance to their age-old buses than scrimping to earn more. 

 Age old buses poses danger to commuters

If bus companies give those bus drivers fixed salary, bus drivers will take care of the buses more because as an employee, if they damage something, it comes out from their pay check. As employees, they are entitled to training to fuel their growth and hoping that they will be more disciplined. Our government should impose this because bus operators won't. (quoted from source)