Whatever happened to this Senate Bill mandating the installation of traffic light timers?

With social media abuzz with the news of the reinstatement of the No-Contact Apprehension Program and the Odd-Even Number Coding Scheme for the EDSA Rehabilitation, one piece of news that popped-up on our feed was on a senate bill filed in 2023 requiring the installation of timers at all traffic lights.

Published by GMA News on March 14, 2023, it talks about Senate Bill No. 1959 which is titled as the Traffic Lights and Pedestrian Lights Timer Act, filed on March 2, 2023 by Senator Mark Villar, and is still marked as pending as of this writing.

Under this bill, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) would require the installation of traffic light timers at all signaled intersections, with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) tasked to coordinate with local government units (LGUs) for their maintenance and upkeep.

Persons, entities, or LGUs who are found to be non-compliant to the proposed law once passed will be fined an amount ranging from between Php 50,000 to Php 100,000.

A lot of motorists will surely appreciate it if this were passed into law as it would allow them to make it easier to anticipate the change in traffic signals at intersections. In addition, hundreds of incidents involving vehicles being improperly apprehended or given citations from the previous NCAP due to sudden traffic signal changes have been reported, especially at those without timers.

The real question now is what happened? We really hope our lawmakers would consider looking into this once again for the betterment of our roads.

_{Photo by Sam Surla}