I Think That God (Through Waze) Has A Sick Sense Of Humor

I can’t believe it. Same exact place, same exact violation.

A couple of months ago, I was on my way to my brother’s place at The Fort. It was a Saturday evening, and I was coming from Marikina. Waze advised me to avoid C5 due to heavy traffic. It led me into the bowels of Pasig.

Approaching an intersection with a traffic light, I had a tall van blocking my view of the traffic light. As we neared the intersection, the light turned yellow. The truck in front of me continued, and I stopped. Big mistake. Although my car was clearly not within the yellow box-with-an-X-inside sign painted on the road, the pedestrian crossing was already behind my car. I should have stopped before the pedestrian crossing lines.

Inside that yellow circle is the sweet spot for traffic enforcers
to catch vehicles that don't stop early enough.

So I was pulled over. But because I was in a hurry, I managed to convince the traffic enforcer that I would pay the fine directly to him, to avoid “the hassle of getting a ticket, etc.” The enforcer was an old man, and after a while he agreed to the arrangement. I drove off from that intersection, vowing to myself I will never, ever pass that way again.

Cut to this morning, on my way to work. Traffic along Ortigas Extension was so bad, Waze redirected me to take the East Bank road and turn right on a bridge that connects Taytay to Pasig. Big mistake. Turns out, Pasig has this stupid, stupid, STUPID number coding scheme wherein even-numbered cars (like mine) couldn’t pass through that bridge during Wednesdays. But instead of turning around, I forged on. Waze had me going through narrow side streets, and then coming out to a main road. Looking at the signs around me, I realized I was already in Pasig. In front of me was another van. (Uh-oh.) And as we approached an intersection, the van in front of me turned left, allowing me to see the traffic light in front turn yellow. So I stopped.

I looked around. It seemed familiar. Then it dawned on me. Oh. My. F**k. Same exact place. Same exact violation. Different time of day only.

I saw a different traffic enforcer (he was much younger) approach my car.

Sigh. Here we go again.

(Maybe next time, when Waze starts directing me towards the innards of Pasig, I’d turn around and stick it out in traffic.)