{"id":48948,"date":"2015-05-11T22:46:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T14:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=48948"},"modified":"2015-05-11T22:46:27","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T14:46:27","slug":"senate-passes-bill-banning-children-from-riding-motorcycles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/05\/11\/senate-passes-bill-banning-children-from-riding-motorcycles\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate passes bill banning children from riding motorcycles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MANILA \u2013The Senate on Monday passed on third and final reading a bill prohibiting children from riding a motorcycle unless they can comfortably reach the standard foot peg of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

With an overwhelming 17-0 vote, the Senate approved Senate Bill No. 2488 or known as the \u201cProhibition on Children Riding Motorcycles Act of 2015\u201d authored and sponsored by acting minority leader Senator Vicente \u2018Tito\u2019 Sotto III.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe proposal sought to ensure the safety of children when they travel on board a two-wheeled motorcycles along public and private roads,\u201d Sotto said.<\/p>\n

Sotto explained that children who ride motorcycles \u201care exposed to danger, particularly if they cannot reach the foot stool or embrace the adult fully for balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of their tender age, especially infants, children\u2019s reflexes are different from adults and they may not be able to react rightly to some situations which can cause them to fall and suffer injury or even result in death,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sotto, however, said bill banning children from riding a motorcycle was not absolute.<\/p>\n

He said the restriction would not apply to remote places or provinces where there was no considerable vehicular traffic and where motorcycles were the only means of transportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to take into account the plight of majority of our citizens who can only afford motorcycles as their mode of transportation,\u201d Sotto said.<\/p>\n

Likewise, he said, prohibition does not depend on the age of the children, instead children who could comfortably plant their feet on the foot peg and whose \u201carms were long enough to wrap around the physique of the driver\u201d would be exempted from the ban.<\/p>\n

He also said the ban would not be applied to emergency cases or in a situation wherein riding a motorcycle was the sole means of reaching a hospital.<\/p>\n

In filing the bill, Sotto cited a report from the World Health Organization (WHO) which showed that injuries from vehicular accidents were among the leading causes of death and disability.<\/p>\n

According to the WHO study, an estimated 3,500 people worldwide are killed daily due to vehicular accidents, 720 of whom are children.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me emphasize, 720 children die due to vehicular accidents every day,\u201d Sotto said.<\/p>\n

In the Philippines, Sotto said the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA)\u2019s reports revealed that motorcycle riders had the highest fatality accident rates among motor vehicles.<\/p>\n

He said Department of Health statistics showed there were 14,000 motorcycle-related injuries for the last quarter of 2012 alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine 14,000 motorcycle accidents every three months? Injuries among children aged 0 to 19 had reached 34 percent of the total cases,\u201d Sotto said.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed legislation, first time offenders would be fined with an amount not exceeding Php5,000, second time offenders face a Php10,000 fine while third time offenders and succeeding offenses face a Php20,000 penalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013The Senate on Monday passed on third and final reading a bill prohibiting children from riding a motorcycle unless …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":49002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","category-politics","mauthors-jelly-f-musico","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}