Filed: Bill banning the needless blowing of car horns on Sundays

Guess who filed it? Leyte Representative Lucy Torres-Gomez, who is known for being quiet.

“House Bill 4542 (An Act Establishing Every Sunday As A ‘No Busina Day’ Prohibiting for the Purpose Horn Tooting Throughout the Country) aims to penalize any driver who will violate the measure with a fine of PHP500 per offense, which should be settled at the nearest branch of the Land Transportation Office (LTO),” reports Lira Dalangin-Fernandez on InterAksyon.com.

The report noted: “The bill defines horn tooting as the unnecessary blowing of horns or the act of blowing the horn continuously, or when there is more than a single or short sound of the horn.”

Torres-Gomez explained that “Sunday was chosen as a ‘No Busina Day’ because ‘in mostly Christian communities, it is on this day that houses of worship are occupied for the members’ mostly solemn religious activities.'”

The bills explanatory note states: “It is a fact that many Filipinos lack simple road courtesy, tooting the horns of their vehicles at the slightest source of irritation, real or imagined. Some of them do not realize that their noisy impatience would not improve traffic congestion a whit. It is not far-fetched to say that the almost pathological blowing of horns on the part of some drivers is a precursor to murderous or homicidal road rage.”

The bill, of course, “exempts from the No Busina Day drivers of ambulances and other vehicles carrying persons requiring immediate medical attention, fire trucks, police patrol cars, military vehicles, and in emergency situations, drivers of all public and private vehicles throughout the country.”

In any case, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) has an existing regulation—MMDA Regulation No. 04-002, Series of 2004—that already bans horn tooting along EDSA and other major thoroughfares of Metro Manila. (Did you guys know this?)

Screengrab of a Bench publicity photo



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