Gov Abet eyes more lights for perilous highway

BALANGA CITY, Bataan – In the wake of the vehicular accident last week in busy Bataan Highway, Governor Albert Garcia has laid out plans to install functional traffic lights in the 68-kilometer road.

The governor has requested traffic lights from the Road Board which will be put up in strategic locations along Bataan Highway that traverses majority of the province, stretching across nine towns and one city from Dinalupihan to Mariveles.

According to Metro Bataan Development Authority (MBDA) General Manager Charlie Pizarro, Garcia tasked agencies in line with public security to execute a stringent safety plan for the highway which is massively plied by heavy vehicles transporting petroleum, industrial supplies and manufactured products.

“Governor Abet has already requested for additional traffic lights from the Road Board. We (provincial government) are all instructed to deliberate further plans of action to make the highway more safe,” Pizarro said.

The Road Board is the governments’ steward in acting as the supplemental source of funding for road maintenance all throughout national and local roads. Pizarro disclosed additional traffic lights were also requested for the national highway that passes through the crisscrossing inside streets of Bataan towns and city.

This move came following the head-on collision of a minibus and trailer truck in Bataan Highway near Bataan National High School in the night of September 16 that injured 46 victims, mostly students and workers going home.

The MBDA chief said the provincial government will provide support to the victims. The 1Bataan Command Center, the province’s main security hub that monitors road activities via closed-circuit camera televisions (CCTV), was tasked to review footages of the accident that left the minibus driver dead and the trailer truck driver incarcerated.

“The center is reviewing CCTV footages to determine salient factors like the speed of the minibus and trailer truck, and if the minibus was overloaded,” Pizarro said.