Ping
Tiny Room in a Boarding House
Sitio Ucma, Barangay Lahug
Cebu City, Cebu
March 18, 2017
Motorcyclists of Cebu
Wherever You May Be From
Yow:
I know you’re in a hurry. We all are. It’s just that that event or that job you want to go to is not as important as my life.
Aside from ten-wheelers, you are what I’m afraid of the most. With an advantage in terms of speed and size, you appear out of nowhere and are gone in an instant. When I’m crossing the street and see a jeepney or a private car, I don’t get that worked up because I know they’d slow down. (They need to because they have a greater mass and therefore a greater inertia. In other words, they have a harder time stopping when they are almost hitting the pedestrians.) As for you, however, you seem to drive faster. I know you could easily avoid pedestrians, but please know that seeing a vehicle fast approaching does not do us any good.
Also, there’s this thing that some of you really like doing. I don’t know what the technical term is, so I’m just going to call it the silencer. You know that thing that makes your motorcycle less noisy? We’d like you to use that. A couple of you deliberately remove it to maybe look cool and to attract attention. Please know—and I cannot stress this enough—that having a noisy motorcycle does not make you cooler or more handsome. It makes you more detestable and annoying. You’re not adding pogi points. You’re adding to the list of people whom you pissed off that day. We don’t like your noise, especially your overspeeding to achieve your desired level of noise. We don’t turn to look at you and say, “That’s one awesome dude!” Instead, we try to memorize your plate number so we could report you. It’s hard to do this, though, because you’re driving too fast, and we’re busy cursing you.
Let’s move on to another issue. I don’t know if it’s the hot sun or the tiny dust particles that blur your judgment, but that tiny space between those two cars is meant for them not to hit each other, not for you to go through. That space on the side of the road is the first place where pedestrians have to go through in order to cross. It’s not for you to speed through to scare us off our wits. When everyone is slowing down, it’s not a chance for you to speed up. I’ve had one of you hit the bumper of the jeepney I was in because you were in so much hurry. Is it really that important that you had to risk your life and ours to get there? I would appreciate it if you take it easy. Let the pedestrians cross (especially if they are crossing on a pedestrian lane). And for those of you who drive the motorcycle for a living, try not to give us heart attacks in the process. Also, could you be more flexible with the rates? Mehehe. ’Cause every time you charge us with ridiculous amounts, we go
I’m hoping for your kind consideration, and I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Ping
Concerned Pedestrian
It's a Ping Thing 