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Agence France-Presse

Gridlock in Manila is costing lives as ambulances stuck in traffic face severe delays in the race against the clock to reach the city’s hospitals, medics warn.
Special lanes for emergency vehicles are not enforced, the infrastructure is outdated, and local drivers are often unwilling or unable to make way – a situation experts say is causing patients to die en route.
“You feel empty. It is as if you were not given a chance to do everything in your capacity to help,” said ambulance driver and paramedic Joseph Laylo.
“If the traffic was not that bad it could have saved the patient,” he added, recalling how he lost a patient when congestion tripled the time to hospital.




Even with an encyclopaedic knowledge of short cuts or aggressive driving such as blasting their horns or bumping unyielding vehicles, it is not always enough to arrive in time.
Manila’s traffic jams are so bad, even President Rodrigo Duterte has been forced to admit failure
Driver Adriel Aragon is still haunted after losing a critically ill patient when it took 40 minutes to reach the hospital – the journey should have taken half that time.
“No matter how hard we honk, even if we use our siren, if the vehicles are not moving it doesn’t matter,” he said. “That’s what happened that time.”
Five minutes before they reached the hospital the woman’s pulse disappeared. She was pronounced dead after they wheeled her into the emergency room.
At peak hours, the main arteries of Manila are clogged with idling cars – a 25km end to end drive through the main highway can take as long as three hours.
Manila is home to some 13 million and there is nearly one vehicle registered per person. The resulting gridlock costs the city US$67 million daily in lost productivity, according to a 2017 Japanese government-funded study.
Neither the government nor ambulance companies keep count of how many patients die in traffic each year, officials said, but emergency medical workers in the city have many horror stories.

Laylo says one patient died inside his ambulance after heavy traffic on a narrow road added 10 minutes to the journey from the patient’s home to the hospital.
“It was about 5.7 kilometres. Normally it would take us less than five minutes, but it took us 15 minutes that time,” Laylo explained. “When you’re trying to save a person’s life, that is very slow.”
Images of ambulances stalled in unmoving traffic jams have sparked outrage on social media in the Philippines.
Even if we use our siren, if the vehicles are not moving it doesn’t matter
Adriel Aragon, ambulance driver
One of the most notorious examples – which has been viewed over 3.2 million times online – was filmed by a woman shocked that cars wouldn’t or could not give way to the ambulance carrying her mother.
“I was very angry. I was worried too because we could not do anything about the vehicles blocking our lane,” the woman, Jing Zamora, said.
The trip took hours, when it should have taken minutes. Zamora’s mother, who suffered a stroke, survived the trip to the hospital but died there a week later.
Solution to Manila’s ‘monster’ traffic jams? 24-hour schools and banks
Officials like Aldo Mayor, public safety chief of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), put at least part of the blame on other road users.
“Some people simply do not care. It is as if they are the only residents of this world,” said Mayor, whose government agency manages the capital’s chaotic traffic.
He added that Manila ordinances concerning emergency vehicles, including a 2017 regulation that reserves one lane for them, are rarely enforced due to personnel constraints.

These problems come as Manila’s population has roughly doubled since 1985 and its infrastructure has not kept up.
Its limited system of commuter rail is augmented by jeepney mini-buses and millions of cars.
The nation’s thicket of bureaucracy and deep-rooted corruption have stalled or blocked efforts to build new roads, bridges and public transit.
Even when you want to give way, but the motorway is full, what can we do?
Vernon Sarne, journalist
President Rodrigo Duterte pledged to unblock the capital’s choking gridlock, but halfway through his term the city’s main thoroughfare, EDSA, remains a car park at rush hour.
The sheer number of cars on the roads is a major factor in whether ambulances can get their patients to hospital quickly, said Vernon Sarne, a long-time automotive journalist.
“Even when you want to give way, but the motorway is full, what can we do? The ambulance cannot levitate,” he said.
However Sarne noted that drivers have become cynical, thinking ambulances might be using their lights and sirens just to cut through the traffic for non-emergencies.
Philippines approves US$7 billion for first subway to help solve Manila’s traffic chaos
“As a motoring public we are jaded to the fact that everyone is taking advantage of us,” he said, adding some politicians use emergency vehicles escorts to avoid the gridlock.
Yet ambulance operators in Manila hope public shaming on social media, like Zamora’s viral video, can help.
“Because of social media, we found more and more people are giving way, giving [us] the benefit of the doubt,” said Michael Deakin, the head of one of the nation’s largest ambulance companies.


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The Philippines

Manila traffic jams take deadly toll as patients die in ambulances stuck in gridlock

Special lanes for emergency vehicles are not enforced, the infrastructure is outdated, and local drivers are often unwilling or unable to make way. Photo: Reuters

TO GO WITH AFP STORY "PHILIPPINES-ENVIRONMENT-POLLUTION-TRANSPORT" by Mynardo Macaraig Vehicles stand in a gridlock along a main avenue during rush hour in Manila on January 11, 2011. In a phenomenon being repeated in many Asian cities, traffic congestion is steadily getting worse in Manila as more and more people can afford to buy a car.There are now nearly two million cars registered in Manila, meaning there is roughly one vehicle for six people in a city where poorly built roads and a general disobedience of traffic rules exacerbates the congestion woes. AFP PHOTO/TED ALJIBE

An electric elevated railway mass transport system (L) runs above petrol-powered vehicles (R) caught in a traffic jam on a Manila highway on June 3, 2008. A three-day Asia Clean Energy Forum opened on June 3 at the Asian Development Bank headquarters in Manila to address climate change and energy security and promote clean energy technology to help booming Asian countries plagued by energy and enviromental problems. AFP PHOTO/Jay DIRECTO

Manila’s traffic jams are so bad, even President Rodrigo Duterte has been forced to admit failure

Janice Sarad, 22, who works for a bank, rides a crowded bus going to work in Cubao, Quezon City. Photo: Reuters

Alejandro Galasao, 58, street sweeper, sweeps trash and dirt off Quezon Avenue in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, November 15, 2018. Galasao spends four to five hours travelling every day to get to his work in Quezon City. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez SEARCH "LOPEZ SARAD" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES.

Solution to Manila’s ‘monster’ traffic jams? 24-hour schools and banks, Duterte’s spokesman says

Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major highway that circles Manila. Photo: Reuters

Philippine presidential candidate Senator Grace Poe speaks at a press conference after she conceded as the ongoing tally placed her third with 21,87 percent, in Manila on May 9, 2016. - Anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte was set to secure a huge win in the May 9 Philippine presidential elections, according to a poll monitor, after an incendiary campaign dominated by his profanity-laced vows to kill criminals. (Photo by MOHD RASFAN / AFP)

***PAY PER USE. Please re-download from vendor website.*** D21GBW Skyline of Makati City, Manila, Philippines, Asia

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte talks during his 4th State of the Nation Address at the House of Representatives in Quezon city, metropolitan Manila, Philippines Monday July 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

epa07244556 Vehicles are stuck in traffic at a street in Divisoria, Manila, Philippines, 22 December 2018. Many Filipinos shop in the Divisoria area, which is famous for cheap and affordable merchandise. EPA-EFE/MARK R. CRISTINO

Solutions to Manila’s infamous traffic jams may be underground and on the water

Traffic builds up on a major road of the Philippine capital. Photo: AFP

Philippines plans to run jeepneys off the road. Drivers say their livelihoods will be ‘massacred’

A new modernised jeepney at the 2018 Manila International Auto Show. Photo: SCMP

Don Juan Salvaleon, jeepney assembler and operator at his workshop in Rizal province, Philippines, April 2018. Photo: SCMP

Jeepneys at Manila airport

Piston leader George San Mateo speaking to the press at a protest against the jeepney phase out in Quezon City, Philippines in December 2018. Photo: SCMP/GaniX Photography and Films

A jeepney painted with portraits of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, former national police chief Ronald dela Rosa and former foreign minister Alan Peter Cayetano. Photo: SCMP Pictures

The normally open-backed machines are cast as rebels of the roads: blaring music, spewing fumes, picking up and dropping off wherever they want. Photo: AFP

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Manila is home to some 13 million and there is nearly one vehicle registered per person. Bad traffic costs the city US$67 million daily in lost productivity
Neither the government nor ambulance companies keep count of how many patients die in traffic each year



Manila is home to some 13 million and there is nearly one vehicle registered per person. The resulting gridlock costs the city US$67 million daily in lost productivity.


Infrastructure in Asia