PUV drivers training in DVD to be released soon

AAP vice president and road safety committee chair Johnny Angeles (right), together with Toyota Motor Philippines president Michinobu Sugata (center) and UP College of Mass Communications Film Institute president Dr. Roland Tolentino at the signing ceremony for the DVD driver training modules on May 24, 2010.

The Automobile Association Philippines (AAP), Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (TMP), the University of the Philippines National Center for Transportation Studies (UP-NCTS) and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) recognize the importance of education in molding professional and responsible public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers. Education is one of the three E’s in traffic management; the other two are Enforcement and Engineering.

Since 2007, AAP, TMP, UP-NCTS and LTFRB have been working together to conduct a three-day training course for taxi, jeepney and bus drivers to enhance their driving skills and safety consciousness with the aim of reducing the number of road crashes.

To educate more PUV drivers, the three-day training course is being made into a DVD series with the assistance of the UP College of Mass Communications. On May 24, 2010, TMP donated P1.5M to its UP Traffic Safety Model Zone partnership project with AAP, LTFRB and the UP - NCTS to fund the production of the training modules The DVD will have eight modules in Pilipino with English subtitles and will cover basic driving skills, traffic rules and regulations, passenger and customer relations, safe and ethical driving and emergency procedures. The first three modules will be launched soon.The road safety partners believe that the supplementary video materials will make the training program more effective.

Aside from the DVD training modules, TMP also funded the renovation of the Toyota Training Room at the UP-NCTS which has complete audio-visual equipment, a road safety database server, and other facilities for road safety-related programs. Since its inauguration in April 2008, the Toyota Training Room has served as the venue of numerous PUV drivers training sessions and other road safety events.