That is the speed we've figured to drive best at down the street where we work without having to brake every twenty meters for jaywalking pedestrians, stopping jeeps, cars making singit, slow-moving tricycles,and other annoyances. On EDSA, we have figured that the speed is 50 kph, as the annoyances (aka buses) are less in number but larger in size and more frequent in 'sarap saksakin' factor.
Bus companies are privately owned here, and the bus drivers are paid only after they pay for the 'rent' of the bus. Two factors that make for some of the worst and most dangerous driving on the road. Buses tend to stop anywhere their passengers want to stop, whether it be in the middle of national highways or when stoplights have turned green. Drivers also fight for passengers using their buses as obstacles at intersections hence the perpetual pile-up of buses and honking at the corner of Ayala and EDSA. I am sure that the syndicates that operate within the systems are not nice people either. Take Bus Company X, a true story this one, the family that owns it has been trying to sell it, and on some surface scratching it's revealed that the three members of different generations that have run the operation have all been killed or died of unnatural causes. Who would want to buy into that headache? And how many bus depots have been bombed and burned down all over the Philippines? It seems the norm here.
Not to mention how many people have been killed by speeding buses, either in them or hit by them? And those that have been mowed down by racing buses? It is ridiculous.
As for this driver on EDSA, we used to throw coins at the lawless buses, then we wanted to switch to rocks, now I am thinking of a Telescoping Metal Baton which I wanted to get R for Christmas (it was out of stock) to stealth use on the bus driver's side.
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