That comical DPWH billboard along Bokawkan Road
I had my day reading the letter of Noel C. Mallari of Baguio titled: “We need engineers who build roads, not who counts money,” which was published in the Jan. 12 issue of the Courier.
Definitely, old-timers at the Department of Public Works and Highways are counting money and they have counting machines like the banks?
I correlate this to the attached picture of a public advisory by the DPWH along the junction of Naguilian Road and Bokawkan Road which I just noticed last week and for that I was so sorry for having not noticed it earlier. This is the funniest, comical, and most stupid billboard of the DPWH.
DPWH might consider revising the content of the public advisory and install a 4×8 feet billboard, which may cost only P20,000 to fabricate. The public advisory might read this way for easier understanding by motorists:
“Public Advisory:
All loaded trucks, please shift to first gear until you reach the flat section of the road, in front of Holiday Grocery. Thank you.”
I had been a driver for 45 years and has been driving all kind of vehicles, including a 10-wheeler truck.
In the past fatal accidents involving loaded trucks along Bokawkan Road, did the investigators check the truck gear setting? Was it in first, second, third, or was it in neutral? I surmise that drivers tried to shift from first gear to second gear and that it did not engage so they shifted to neutral. Naturally, the brakes cannot hold the 30 or more tons of load so it goes free-wheeling, destroying everything on its path. Ask any old-time truck drivers and they will agree with me.
Loss of brakes is a rarity in this time of new model trucks. We hope accidents will be prevented to save lives and properties. — JUNIPER DOMINGUEZ, Sabangan, Mountain Province