Driving In The Philippines

By: Chad

First things first. Getting your license is most important. As long as you have your home country drivers license you can easily convert it to a Philippine license. One visit to the LTO and going through the process which takes about half the day you can leave with your temporary license and then it takes about 3-6 months to get your real license in the mail.

The foreigners that have the hardest time adjusting to driving here will be those that come from countries that do not drive on the right hand side of the road. Adjusting to that and dealing with the total aggressive nature of the Jeepney drivers and taxi drivers will be one of the scariest things you might ever do. My advice to those drivers would be to find a quiet subdivision and get comfortable with driving in the right hand lane before you attempt driving on the roads.

You will be riding the Jeepneys and possibly taxis long before you actually drive so pay special attention to how the drive. In my experience these drivers are the most dangerous. They will cut you off with little or no warning and also will pull right out in front of you to make a turn. I often see them making a left turn from the far right lane. Very dangerous if your not expecting this. The jeepneys also will stop right in the middle of a 2 lane road to pick up or drop off passengers and taxis will swerve across 2 lanes of traffic to seek out passengers also.

The next thing to watch are the motorcycles. They are not as aggressive as Jeepneys or taxis mainly because they don't have the power to do so since they are mostly only 125cc motorcycles. The thing to watch out for is them weaving thru traffic and possibly pulling out in front of you unexpectedly. It seems that they just expect to be seen and you do what is necessary to avoid hitting them. I am very surprised that there are not many more accidents involving motorcycles.

Then there are the tricycles and tricicabs. These are just what they sound like the frist being a motorcycle with a side car the second a bicycle with a side car. They usually will not be pulling out in front of you but they do use the same roads and are much slower moving than the other vehicles on the road. Keep an eye out for them and you should be just fine.

Also I should mention that my experience driving here is mostly in Iloilo. A small city compared to Manila the capital city. Even after driving here for more than 2 years I am intimidated by the thought of driving in Manila. There are many more Jeepneys and taxis on the road and there are many more accidents too. I do however think that if I lived there and knew the roads better in time I would feel comfortable driving there.

If you want to know more about my experience living in the Philippines you can visit my blog at Myfilipinobride.com and feel free to email me with any special information you would like to know.

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