Hit-and-Run Drivers in The Philippines

There are some trends in The Philippines that are a bit different than in The States. For instance, I have been to seven weddings in The Philippines, including my own wedding, and in all cases the bride was pregnant except for my bride. It seems like the primary motivator for marriage here is pregnancy. I have no idea what the statistics are in The States, but the ratio of pregnant weddings cannot be anywhere near as high as here.

Another trend in The Philippines is the hit-and-run driver. I have encountered them three times in less than a year. In October 2006, I got out of a motorela (a motorcycle with a cab that encloses the driver and has room for perhaps 6 to 8 passengers in the back. The cab also has two extra wheels behind the rear tire of the motorcycle, to the side, to support the cab and passenger weight.) When I stepped out of the motorela a car turning North at the corner of Gomez and Tiano Streets in Cagayan de Oro, sideswiped another vehicle and then took off in my direction. The car’s front left tire brushed my ankle and slightly ran over my heel. Had the impact been just one inch closer my ankle would have have been crushed and I would still be in a wheel chair or on crutches. I did not think at the time to even look at the license plate, I was too busy contemplating the skin that had been peeled off my ankle and the bruising that would result.

My second encounter with a hit-and-run driver was at about 2:00 AM, on Saturday, August 4, 2007, in the Divisoria area of Cagayan de Oro, when an erratically driven Kia 2700 truck hit my left front fender and then took off. This was about one block from Dynasty Hotel. I gave chase, passed the Kia truck and forced it over to the side of the road. The driver got out and profusely apologized and repeatedly asked that I forgive him. Marissa took off on foot to Divisoria Police Station 1, near the amphitheater at R.N. Abejeula and Burgos Streets, and Tom Fagan, an ex-pat American friend of mine headed for Dynasty Court Hotel to call the police.

The driver had no drivers license and worked as a security guard for Kia Motors of Cagayan de Oro. He continued to beg me to forgive him. I told him I had no problem forgiving him, but I wanted someone to be responsible for the damages he had caused to my truck.

Here’s the unlicensed driver next to the damaged fender. There was a large bolt sticking out of the rear right corner of the bed of the Kia 2700 and had puntured my plastic fender and then nearly ripped the fender off. My hood was slightly bent and mis-aligned, and the paint chipped on the hood where the fender had been bent upwards.

Here’s what a Philippines Traffic Citation looks like. Note that the Kia 2700 was impounded by the police. I blurred the name of the driver on the ticket and his face because I do not wish to shame him, and shame is very real in The Philippines.

This is a photo of the Kia 2700 that hit me.

This is a photo of the damage caused with the police officer pointing at it. The damage looks slight, but was quite more extensive than it appears.

I took photos of the OR (Original Registration) and CR (Certificate of Registration) of the Kia 2700, documents that all vehicles in The Philippines are required to carry at all times.

The next day I went to Kia Motors and showed them the photos I had taken. They immediately assumed full responsibility and produced a letter stating that they would fully repair the damage to my Isuzu Vehicross and provide me with a vehicle to drive while the repairs were made. I cannot say enough about the way I was treated by Kia Motors of Cagayan de Oro.

They immediately terminated their contract with the security company that was providing them with security guards, saying that since there was more than one on-duty at the time, the others must have known about it, and the joy riding must have been going on for a long time, and they thanked me for bringing to their attention such a serious breach of their own security. I love those guys at Kia Motors of Cagayan de Oro.

My next encounter with a hit and run driver was on September 1, the date of my wedding anniversary. Marissa and I had celebrated our anniversary at the place we had gotten married one year before, at Lauremar Beach Resort, and after it got dark we headed home to change and go to Zax Retro Restobar, where a Rotary Club of Cagayan de Oro friend of mine, Michael Auxillio, had promised to sign and play the violin for us as a special treat for our anniversary.

As we are heading to Zax, throught he Cogon area of Cagayan de Oro, we were going down a street that bent to the right at an intersection. This was a 2-lane road with 2-way traffic. A jeepney came up on my left side to pass me as we were going into the bend, while another jeepney was headed towards us, so the jeepney passing me would have to swerve into my lane as soon as he passed me to avoid a head-on collision. This is the normal maniacal driving methodology of jeepney drivers in The Philippines. What wasn’t normal is that as the jeepney went to pass me, a Nissan van came into the opening between the jeepney and my Isuzu Vehicross, trying to pass both of us. This probably would have worked out fine had there not been an on-coming jeepney. As the jeepney that was passing me began to swerve into my lane, the Nissan van lurched in my direction to try to avoid the jeepney. I braked and pulled as far to the side of the road as I could, but there were parked tricycles and motorelas there and I could only pull over so far. That’s when I felt and heard the Nissan Van hit my truck, and then I heard a metal-crunching sound. I stopped. The jeepney continued on his way. The Nissan van that hit me took off like a bat-out-of-hell. I did not know how much damage I had suffered, but I thought it was pretty serious from the sound of the crunching metal.

I fell into hot-pursuit mode. The Nissan Van headed for Cogon market and went the wrong way down a couple of one-way streets. It was no match for my Isuzu Vehicross, which is like a 4-wheel drive brute sports car. The Isuzu Vehicross has front and rear anti-sway bars. You don’t see those on anything but dedicated sports vehicles. The VX doesn’t even lean or roll in hard street corners. With horn blaring and lights flashing I repeatedly came right up on the Nissan Van. When they would not pull over I passed them and tried to force them to the side of the road, but I did this at an intersection and they slammed on the brakes and took off down a side road. I yanked my emergency brake all the way up and 180′d, released the brake and was back on their fleeing ass again in a few seconds. Marissa is leaning forward waving her hands trying to get pedestrians to move out of the way, but since my windows have such dark tint, I doubt anyone saw her making the effort. I told Marissa to call Ansell, her cousin and Champion competitive shooter, who also happens to be an SPO2 (Senior Police Officer 2 or sergeant) with the PNP (Philippine National Police). Marissa had no load on her phone so I handed her mine and she spoke with Ansell during the pursuit, giving street by street details of where we were.

Here’s a 28-second long 500 KB drivers view of the road video where this accident happened. At 20 to 22 seconds you can see where the street bears to the left, but there is also a road to the left. At 21 seconds is where I saw the jeepney begin trying to pass me on the left. By my position at the 23-second mark I saw the on-coming jeepney. At about the 24-second spot the white Nissan van tried to pass me and the jeepney and came between us so that we were three vehicles running parallel. I was driving at about the same speed in the video as I was that evening. At about the 25-second spot the jeepney swerved to the right to get back in the right-hand lane and get out of the way of the on-coming jeepeny. I came to a stop at about the 26.5 second spot, the jeepney that hit the white van continued on down the road and the van sped off to the left.

Eventually, we got to Corrales Street, heading for Night Cafe and the Nissan Van had enough and pulled over in a place where they could not continue, signaling surrender. I pulled up behind them to block them. I grabbed two magazines from the CZ75 pistol that belongs to Marissa and for which she is licensed to carry, and put the magazines in my front left pocket and then reached into the carry bag and gripped the pistol, but did not pull it out. With my left hand I pulled my Sony DSC-F717 from my fanny pack and took a photo of the back of the van and the license plate. No one got out of the van for nearly five minutes. Marissa is at this point about 4.5 months pregnant, and she is freaking out. “Please don’t pull out your gun!” I told her not to worry, that I was a champion pistol shooter and that if the guys in the van got out with bolos (an agricultural tool similar to a machete, but with a curved blade) and crowbars and or with a gun that I would shoot each and every one of them between the eyes.

Eventually, the five people in the Nissan van climbed out. They were teenagers, and unarmed. They approached my window and I rolled it down just a few inches. They began to apologize and beg for my forgiveness. I began to calm down. I told them just to wait, that the PNP were on their way, and they could deal with my cousin Ansell Ladra when he arrived. The driver told me he was very nervous and did not know what to do and that’s why he fled the scene. I told him I was probably more nervous than him since I had five deliquent teenagers outside my truck that had just put me through a 10 minute high-speed pursuit chase. I demanded the drivers license of the driver and the OR and CR of their vehicle, which I took photos of.

They then begged me that when the police arrived and called their parents that I tell them the accident happened right where they had finally pulled over and to not tell their parents about the high-speed chase. At this point I relaxed and told them I would go along with their story, just as long as they agreed to pay for the damage to my vehicle. They then took a careful look at my Isuzu VX and pointed at the damage that had been caused by the Kia 2700 four weeks prior. I was in such disbelief I got up the courage to get out of the vehicle to examine my Vehicross with the five teenagers. I then realized they had actually only scraped the side of the plastic fenders of the VX and had caused no substantial damage.

“What was that crunching of metal sound I heard”, I asked them. They pointed to the front left side of the Nissan Van, which was deeply dented and shredded. Apparently, it was their vehicle that suffered the brunt of the damage from their collision with the jeepney. While I probably could have squeezed five or ten thousand pesos from these college kids, I knew that Kia would be repairing my damaged front fender the next week and in the process would paint all the plastic on my VX, and I was late for my date with Marissa and my violin-playing friend from the Rotary Club of Cagayan de Oro, Michael Auxillio at Zax. I told them to just forget about it and to “pag-puyo mong tanan” (behave yourselves).

Then they pretty much flipped out with gratitude, telling me how great I was for forgiving them and letting them go. They all spoke very good English and I am always needing people for my company that speak good English, so I gave each of them one of my business cards, and shook hands with each of them.

We took off and they and Marissa and I ended up at the Caltex gas station on Velez Street, where again they profusely thanked me and told me how great I was for forgiving them. We filled up with gas and then went to Zax for a wonderful evening, and for a first anniversary, it was one that neither Marissa nor I will ever forget.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 12:51 and is filed under Cagayan de Oro, Philippines Driving, Philippines Expat Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.