One of the popular businesses that pop up since the start of the pandemic has been delivery businesses of all kinds. From food to plants and all sorts of items, deliveries have kept riders zipping about the country, bringing orders personally to doorsteps and ensuring the riders make a good steady income.
But in this kind of business, the more items you deliver per trip, the more you earn. And some riders would risk their safety just to load a few more items in every ride. What they forget is that they can easily be the cause of accidents instead of simply being a victim of one.
Overloading a motorcycle is one of the leading causes of motorcycle crashes. The imbalance of the cargo load affects the stability of the ride and increases the risk of crashes.
That is why the PNP and LTO are cracking down on delivery riders who use improvised top boxes or rear cargo boxes that exceed the minimum dimensions allowed for motorcycles. They enforce the law that limits the top box and imposes citations and penalties on riders who fail to conform to this rule.
Some still are either ignorant or willfully violate the restrictions despite the risk of apprehension. You can easily spot them – they are the riders who have loads of items stacked on their top boxes, bound together with packing tape. Others even attempt to load cargo in every possible surface, including the top of their handlebars, erroneously thinking that if they ride slow, they can avoid accidents.
But in the end, we see them wrecked on the road, cargo strewn across the highway and disrupting traffic. We see them and shake our heads at the sad fate of a cautionary tale, knowing fully that this incident will happen daily all over the country until the riders understand that the reason for the top box restriction is for their safety and those of fellow motorists.
So as a responsible rider, make sure you order and install only the legitimate and authorized top box for your motorcycle. And if you are not sure, just approach any of your friendly Motorcentral staff and we will hook you up, Kaibigan.
