Driving the Manila way

 Last night Sister French and I braved, for the first time, the notorious metro Manila traffic. We survived. Normally leaving the office at 4 pm to travel about 1 mile would take about 30 minutes. Since we left at 7:30 there was minimal traffic on the road and were able to get back to the MRC in about 5 minutes.

We've heard various ways to approach the driving here. One piece of advice from Clem was if there is a space- fill it or it will be filled. Another set of rules we heard originally from our close friends whose parents served a mission in Argentina.

Picture #1 

Rule number 1: Big wins. In this case Bus trumps jeepney; jeepney trumps cars; cars trump mopeds, motorcycles, and trikes; two wheel vehicles trump pedestrians. Their is no right-away for a pedestrian- so one must always be on the guard. As a side note- Trains trump everything.

Go Navy!!

Picture #2

Rule number 2: Do not look the other drivers in the eye. If you do so you concede position in the road. It is, somewhat, a large game of chicken. Or for those who are NASCAR fans just think Daytona. While I brought up the subject of NASCAR- I find it quite ironic the resemblance that jeepneys have to NASCAR vehicles. As a challenge- can you pick out the NASCAR vehicle? (hint- it's the one with not much traffic)

Rule number 3: Play dumb and just go. This is one of my favorites although I'm not sure how Marcia likes this particular rule.

There are also rules for when being pulled over by the local Barney Fife. I think I will save those for another post...


jsf