Manong Drivers - Reposting an old blog from 2012

Some jeepney drivers suck at being considerate. For example, as an employee we need public utility vehicles to take us to work. Aside from the bus, jeeps are used most. As I observed, some jeepney drivers, seem oblivious to the fact that their passengers are mostly employees who need to get to work on time or that they have passengers at all.

Manong driver #1 – The Chikador

They are those drivers who are very friendly to their fellow jeepney drivers. So friendly, that they would slow down the jeep a bit , or even stop for a few seconds, if they see one of their driver friends coming from the other direction and make small talk. At the expense of their passengers’ time. What if 7 out of their 9 passengers are hurrying to get to work? What if 4 out of that 7 are to receive memos from their HR team for being late to work again? What 1 out of that 4 would receive a final written warning should they show for work late again?

Manong driver #2 – The Checkout Driver

These are what I would call in Tagalog as “bakaw” drivers. These are drivers who go on a slow pace basically to check out every street being passed by for potential passengers. For example, manong checks the left, and the right, yells the destination, speeds up a bit, then slows down again, checks left, checks right, sees a person walking towards the main road, waits for that person to reach the main road, yells the destination and lo and behold….this person is actually not going to ride the jeep but would be crossing the street. Wasted almost 3 minutes of travel time. Never caring if the passengers that are actually on the jeep are in a hurry or needs to be somewhere at a certain time.

Manong driver #3 – The Lazy-ass Driver

Okay, everybody knows that when you get on a jeepney you are obliged to pass the fare from the people who sit far from the driver. I am down with that. It’s not a problem at all. But what frustrates me is when the driver himself, the one who actually earns from us, doesn’t feel like they need to exert some effort in getting the fares. They would reach back, sure, but not enough for you to comfortably give the fare. Their kind of reach is more like palm up but doesn’t go past above the shoulder so you’d have to scoot forward (of course that is while you struggle from the back and forth rocking of the jeep itself) and reach that hand.

Manong driver #4 – The Unapologetic Driver

These are probably the worst, mostly because it includes possible injuries. These are drivers whose minds are just on the money. They love packing up the jeep with passengers. They’d stop to pick up the passenger but once that person is on the jeep, the driver would immediately floor, not minding if the passenger was able to take a seat or if the passenger got thrown out of the jeep and has been run-over by the next car.

I’m sure that you’re familiar with at least one of these “manongs” or worse, all of them. There is no escaping them for me because it will be a long time before I get a car. But until then, I guess, I have to live with these crazy jeeps.