Here in the Philippines we have a saying that if you can survive driving in our streets (more specifically in the streets of the capital), you can drive anywhere in the world, left-hand driving be damned.

I so totally agree with that statement.

I’ve only been driving for less than five (5) years and mostly in the south – Alabang and Laguna – so I’d assume that that roughly translates to about a year and a half of driving in the city.

See, there’re different entities of drivers in the city and it is infinitely more difficult to navigate through the convuluted streets of Manila or Makati than it is to navigate through Alabang.

Driving in Manila also requires patience because there’s a special brand of assholes that exist here:

1. Commitment-Phobes. Drivers who occupy not just one, but two lanes because they cannot find it in themselves to commit. Seriously, make up your freakin’ minds.
2. The Slow-Pokes On The Fast Lane. The speed limit in the expressway’s 100KM/Hr for cars so, quite predictably, that’s usually how fast the cars are on the fast lane. Unfortunately some people disregard this and take their sweet time, going at a fantastic rate of 60KM/Hr – 70KM/Hr even though the other lanes are wide open. It’s a bit of a sore issue for me especially because the car I drive has an automatic transmission and it does take a bit more engine revving (which I personally hate) to go back up to 100KM/Hr if I suddenly drop down to the area of sixties or seventies.
3. Motorcycle Drivers From Hell. They pop up out of nowhere and they never stay in their lanes. There one whole lane designated for motorcycle vehicles in C5 but they even have the gal to weave through the gaps between vehicles in the fast lane like a snake. To all reckless motorcycle drivers out there: DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT IF MY CAR AND YOUR PUNY LITTLE VEHICLE COLLIDE, THERE’S A HIGHER CHANCE OF YOU DYING ON THE SPOT?
4. Zombie Pedestrians. Especially more annoying during five o’clock and six o’clock in the afternoon when all the working peoples are let off work. Pedestrian lane? Pshaw, what’s that? And there’s never just one lone pedestrian either; they always appear in droves and always take forever to cross the street, regardless of the pedestrian light countdown. I mean, I get it, I’ve been a pedestrian for most of my life, but would it really kill you to stop and pause when the pedestrian light is red and our traffic light is green?
5. Taxi Drivers. There’s a special breed of cab drivers here in the Philippines; they almost seem to have imbibed super special powers that allow them to squeeze through the smallest of all small gaps without getting any scratches on their own car or on any of the vehicles surrounding them. My paternal grandfather used to be a cab driver in his youth and when I was first learning how to drive a car, one of the earliest lessons I learned from my Dad was that if ever I get in a situation where I am about to be crushed by a taxi, under no circumstances am I to move an inch. The cabs usually can take care of it and even though it is annoying as fuck to be cut off, it’s better than to deal with car damage (which usually occurs if you try to cut off the taxi’s attempt to cut into your lane).

By no means am I the perfect driver but these are, at the top of my head, the top five (5) irks of mine whenever I drive out to the city. Oh, there’re lots more but these five (5) hold a special place in my heart for raising my blood pressure a few significant notches.

With these types of peoples normally roaming the streets, it’s a wonder that the death toll for road accidents in the Philippines is low.