Vehicle Increase Congests City Roads

Roads in highly-urbanized cities, particularly in Cebu City, continue to be congested of vehicles because there are 50,678 newly-registered vehicles that are added to the list of the existing vehicles in Central Visayas as of December 31 last year.

The statistics of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) showed that there were 521,903 vehicles registered in different parts of Central Visayas in 2010 and the figures went up to 574,640 the following year.

But the number of vehicles registered in the region as of last December had already reached to 625,318 which is 9.46 percent increase compared to the figures of the previous year.

While the number of vehicles continue to increase every year, the LTO has failed to provide enough number of license plates to be issued to the newly-registered ones and the current year stickers for those with renewed registration.

LTO-Manila was not able to manufacture enough number of license plates for the 1,289,568 newly-registered vehicles nationwide in 2012 because the records show that the total number of new plates manufactured is 221,448 for the four-wheel vehicles and 598,930 plates for trailers and motorcycles.

It was reported that the decrease in the number of motor vehicle plates manufactures last year was due to unavailability of shooting materials for the period August to October and defective shooting materials purchased in November.

The failure of LTO-Manila to provide enough number of license plates to the newly-registered vehicles prompted the local LTO personnel to just allow the motorists to use improvised plates.

Aside from the lack of new vehicles’ license plates, LTO also lacks current year stickers that are supposedly issued to the owners of vehicles whose registration of units had been renewed.

But while the LTO failed to issue the current year stickers to the owners of vehicles, whose registration had been renewed, the agency still collected P50 for the current year sticker.

In Talisay City-LTO Branch, only 500 current year stickers were issued last January and the stickers lasted only until March.

Most of the vehicles registered in Central Visayas are operating in Cebu, particularly in Cebu City and nearby adjacent cities.

LTO-Central Visayas is fourth in the highest revenue collection of all LTO regional offices nationwide with the amount of P1.124 Billion.

The statistics also showed that the number of drivers licenses issued to applicants in the region last year had reached 365,925 which is lesser compared to the number of vehicles registered because the driver’s license expires every two years.

In the enforcement of traffic laws, LTO-7 operatives and its deputized agents had made 84,794 apprehensions last year, which is lesser compared to the 101,855 in 2011.

With the increasing number of vehicles and the government’s failure to construct more roads or widen the existing ones, the government must look for some alternatives to prevent that in the near future, the vehicles can no longer move in roads.

In Cebu City, public utility vehicles that are plying the routes outside the city are no longer allowed to enter the city streets, instead they are allowed only up to the accredited terminals as one way to decongest traffic.

But there were some suggestions that one way to decongest our roads of traffic is to strictly prohibit the operation of those vehicles that fails the road worthiness test, as conducted by the Motor Vehicle Inspection Center (MVIC).