Motorist Discipline on Road Races

21K Starting Line at 5:30am

10K Stating Line at 5:55am

The order of the day was moderate to heavy rain and a temperature of 24C. This weather condition did not deter the Eco Dash by Ayala Mall Environmental Run to be held today September 13, 2009.

Instead of going through the sequence of the race event, I would like to proceed directly to the intention of this post, that of driver’s discipline, virtue of patience and culture of road/traffic behaviour.

In the past I have written on the subject “Motorist vs. Runners – Road Sharing” which I provide a link herewith for my observations and concerns then;

http://reinier6666.blogspot.com/2009/08/motorist-vs-runners-road-sharing.html

Today’s race being sponsored by Ayala Malls has the complete support of Ayala security group and ably augmented by the organizers marshals and police group from both Taguig and Makati City with mobile patrols at that. If you are a runner, upon reaching a 100 meters before the intersection of Paseo de Roxas and Makati Avenue you could not but notice that motorist at Makati Avenue going eastward were blowing their horn in full blast so much so that the sound was really annoying and I mean really annoying.





Just before I was to turn left to Makati Avenue there was this taxi cab who was quite insistent on crossing Paseo but the intersection was full of 21k runners going back the Fort and 10k runners turning left to Ayala Malls. The taxi driver still insisted to cross and the only alternative for the traffic enforcer was position his own body to stop the taxi cab. The taxi cab driver shouted to the traffic enforcer “P_I_ninyo! Matulog nalang kayo maulan pa naman” . The traffic enforcer was calm instead just told the driver to turn right at Paseo if he was in a hurry. The driver instead reacted by shouting “ tuta kayo ng mga yan” and immediately turned right and speeded to the direction of Paseo eastward. The traffic enforce already lost his cool and run after the taxi but to no avail. Had the traffic enforcer caught the taxi before speeding, it was a very ripe condition for an violent incident!

The whole incident happened so quick that I myself was at a lost and could not believe on the behaviour, disciple and virtue of patience of that particular driver. Worst is that as if he was able to pull a fast one by speeding away after all the offensive words he had uttered.

It brings me back to my past concern. Hopefully this scenario will not be replicated in the near future to cause a “Road Rage” that may result to injury or even death either to a motorist, a runner, a marshal, or a traffic enforcer. If we cannot even discipline drivers on the very basic of driving what can we expect for their virtue of patience and understanding for runners and running events on weekends. Think about it guys how to solve this recurring problem which shall be more and more possible to happen considering more races are being held on different streets in the simultaneously on 3 to 4 venues every weekend.




On the race event itself, it was well organized with ample water and Gatorade stations. The rains might have caused others to remain at home but the number of participants who braved the rain were still of great number. In view of the cool weather I expect a lot of PR will be established on this run event. For my 10k run it was 01h07m28s.

It was another Sunday at a Road Race.