OPINION: ‘Kamote’ driver rode into a closed road and hit two runners

That last phrase is an honest description. Riding a motor vehicle is not an improper act. The rider is an improper person operating a motor vehicle. The law has a category for the driver whose judgment is the hazard, and it fits here, because nothing about this was a misreading of a situation. The road was closed. He went in. We have a word for this and the word is the problem: “kamote.”

“Kamote rider” is a joke. It turns a person who nearly killed somebody into a character type, something between a nuisance and a mascot. The word lets us file this under bad manners. It is not bad manners. Amongst friends, it’s funny. But nobody laughs when it lands on a civilian doing their thing on the streets, expecting to be in a safe place.

What we call “kamote driving” is a series of small bets. Counterflowing because the other lane looks empty. Riding onto the sidewalk because the light is long. Squeezing between two moving vehicles because the gap is technically wide enough. Each of these is a wager that nothing could go wrong. The wager pays off almost every time, which is exactly why the behavior survives. A driver can counterflow for ten years and conclude from the evidence that counterflowing is fine.

The problem is who pays when the bet loses. On Ayala that morning, the downside was not carried by the rider. Two people on foot received the impact of it, and they were on a road that had been closed specifically so they would not have to think about traffic. They had every reason to believe the space was safe. That belief is the thing that got broken, and it is harder to rebuild than a motorcycle.

There is a defense that comes up whenever this is discussed, usually within the first ten comments. Traffic here is terrible. The roads are badly designed. Enforcement is inconsistent. Everybody does it. All of that is true and none of it is an argument. Bad infrastructure explains why a driver is frustrated. It does not explain why a specific person looked at a barricaded road and decided the barricade was addressed to somebody else.

The LTO can suspend a license and it should. What a suspension cannot do is change the mindset that produced the decision. In a country where getting caught is unlikely and the consequences of getting caught are usually negotiable, recklessness is not irrational. It is a reasonable response to a low chance of enforcement. The rider on Ayala is facing a hearing because he was filmed and it went viral. But the thousands of riders doing identical things on a road like EDSA will not be.

None of this is a case against riders as a group. Most people on two wheels in this city are commuting, working, or delivering food, and are considerably more careful than the drivers around them, because they have to be. The point is narrower. The culture has made room for a certain kind of driver, given him a nickname, and mostly finds him funny.

The September 8 hearing will decide what happens to one license. Whether anything happens to the habit is a different matter, and it will not be settled at the LTO.

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