MOU signed to ensure enforcement of speed limits for road safety
By AJ Siytangco
Published Jul 25, 2019 05:11 pm
By Alexandria Dennise San JuanÂ
A memorandum of understanding to ensure nationwide enforcement of speed limits was signed Thursday by the Department of Transportation (DOTr), Land Transportation Office (LTO) and public law organization ImagineLaw.
The MOU will help implement the joint memorandum circular on speed limit enforcement that was issued more than a year ago.
(L-R) LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante, DOTr Undersecretary for Road Transport and Infrastructure Mark Richmund de Leon, and ImagineLaw Executive Director Sophia Monica San Luis (DOTr / MANILA BULLETIN)
Through the MOU, additional training will be conducted for LGUs throughout the country to assist them in setting and enforcing speed limits.
Signing the MOU were DOTr Undersecretary Mark De Leon, LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante, and lawyer Sophia San Luis, executive trustee of ImagineLaw.
The law organization had helped craft Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) No. 2018-011 in a bid to improve road safety in the country through implementing speed limits.
In his welcome remarks, De Leon cited a Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) report showing that at least 11,360 people, mostly pedestrians, were killed in 2017 through road crash caused by speeding cars which led to the crafting of the said JMC.
The Memorandum issued by the DOTr, Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in January 2018, strengthens and implements Republic Act 4136 or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code, which mandates national and local government units (LGUs) to classify their roads and set corresponding speed limits.
San Luis said that they have trained at least 300 LGUs since the memorandum was issued last year.
However, she added that many city and municipal governments in the Philippines have not yet classified roads within their jurisdiction or set local speed limits pursuant to their mandate.
"In 2016, we interviewed about 300 LGUs and we found 56 that have speed limit ordinances. Of the 56 that we found half of them only copy the provisions of the RA 4136 which wasn't really effective at all as it doesn't really set the speed limit and the other, the coverage of their ordinance is not comprehensive," San Luis bared.
Under the 2018 memo, the speed limit on national roads for passengers cars and motorcycles should be at 80 kilometers per hour (kph) on "open roads," 40 kph on "through streets," and 20 kph on "crowded streets," while for trucks and buses, it should be 50 kph, 30 kph, and 20 kph, respectively.
For provincial roads, the speed limit for passengers cars and motorcycles was set at 40 kph on open roads and through streets, and 20 kph on crowded streets while for trucks and buses, it should be 30 kph and 20 kph, respectively.
For city and municipal streets, speed limit for passengers cars and motorcycles should be 30 kph, while 20 kph on barangay roads and crowded streets.
(L-R) LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante, DOTr Undersecretary for Road Transport and Infrastructure Mark Richmund de Leon, and ImagineLaw Executive Director Sophia Monica San Luis (DOTr / MANILA BULLETIN)
Through the MOU, additional training will be conducted for LGUs throughout the country to assist them in setting and enforcing speed limits.
Signing the MOU were DOTr Undersecretary Mark De Leon, LTO Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante, and lawyer Sophia San Luis, executive trustee of ImagineLaw.
The law organization had helped craft Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) No. 2018-011 in a bid to improve road safety in the country through implementing speed limits.
In his welcome remarks, De Leon cited a Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) report showing that at least 11,360 people, mostly pedestrians, were killed in 2017 through road crash caused by speeding cars which led to the crafting of the said JMC.
The Memorandum issued by the DOTr, Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in January 2018, strengthens and implements Republic Act 4136 or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code, which mandates national and local government units (LGUs) to classify their roads and set corresponding speed limits.
San Luis said that they have trained at least 300 LGUs since the memorandum was issued last year.
However, she added that many city and municipal governments in the Philippines have not yet classified roads within their jurisdiction or set local speed limits pursuant to their mandate.
"In 2016, we interviewed about 300 LGUs and we found 56 that have speed limit ordinances. Of the 56 that we found half of them only copy the provisions of the RA 4136 which wasn't really effective at all as it doesn't really set the speed limit and the other, the coverage of their ordinance is not comprehensive," San Luis bared.
Under the 2018 memo, the speed limit on national roads for passengers cars and motorcycles should be at 80 kilometers per hour (kph) on "open roads," 40 kph on "through streets," and 20 kph on "crowded streets," while for trucks and buses, it should be 50 kph, 30 kph, and 20 kph, respectively.
For provincial roads, the speed limit for passengers cars and motorcycles was set at 40 kph on open roads and through streets, and 20 kph on crowded streets while for trucks and buses, it should be 30 kph and 20 kph, respectively.
For city and municipal streets, speed limit for passengers cars and motorcycles should be 30 kph, while 20 kph on barangay roads and crowded streets.