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Egay Uy

SEVERAL websites on the Internet would tell any resourceful motorist when to use and when not to use the now-abused hazard lights.

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In a NZ website, hazard lights may be used only when one’s vehicles has broken down and is being towed, or when you are changing a blown tire by the side of the road.

According to this and other motoringelated websites, hazard lights are not to be turned on when a motorist’s vehicle is parked on a broken yellow line to pick something up. These lights are to warn other road users that you are a temporary hazard, as when your car is being towed to when you are changing a tire.

The same websites say you shouldn’t use your hazard lights to warn other drivers that you are parked illegally (which any motorist should not be doing in the first place anyway).

It is therefore best never to use hazard lights as an excuse for dangerous or illegal parking. These lights serve as a warning to other motorists of an emergency situation you may be in while on the road, not to announce to the other motorists of your ignorance of their proper use.

An article in Top Gear Philippines says that hazard warning signal may be used only to warn other road users of a particular danger such as when a vehicle is stalled and cannot be moved immediately hence causing an obstruction to other road users, or when indicating to other road users the risk of an imminent danger.

Of course, as soon as the danger is gone, the driver has the obligation to immediately shut off the hazard lights.

Here in Cagayan de Oro, hazard lights are often abused by drivers who run counter to the normal flow of traffic, drivers who park on the travel lane for their convenience, drivers who park in front of a no-parking sign, or by drivers while loading or unloading inside a yellow box.

This improper use of the hazard lights could later spell disaster to motorists.  Motorists should not wait for traffic officers to call their attention of this abuse.  We all could start by instilling discipline upon ourselves when we use the road, either as motorist, pedestrian or commuter.

Remember the boy who cried “Wolf!”?

 

(Lawyer Egay Uy is the chairman of the city’s Task Force Hapsay Dalan.)

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