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The Unified Vehicle Volume Reduction Program (UVVRP) or “number coding” system I am always open to new and radical ideas. However, the day the MMDA and some policemen sounded too pleased with themselves on the launching date many years ago, I knew we were in for trouble. I could never forget the traffic authorities' favorite replies when asked by the media about the UVVRP's effectivity, they seem to mouth off mindlessly, "well, the color coding scheme is quite effective, you can see that we have reduced the number of vehicles on the streets by 20%." Initially (in its perhaps few months of implementation) that was the case, but many years later, some still stick to that 20% fallacy misconception. "20% Effectivity" This is not some static pizza on the plate that we're talking about here. You take away 1 or two slices of pizza, no mysterious dough will grow back. Human will throws the notion of 20% effectivity down the dynamic drain. In the MMDA's scheme, plates with ending of 1 and 2 are banned on 7am-7pm on Mondays, plates ending 3 and 4 on Tuesdays, and so on. Here are the unseen statistics overlooked by our traffic "authorities".

• People affected by this simply buy another car. There goes the supposed "one less car off the road".
• People who can't buy another car, for example a housewife, will simply use the car the next day or the day previous the ban. So its "one less car off the road" today, but one more car on the road tomorrow that shouldn't have been out.
• People who can't buy another car but need to go out everyday take more taxis. So there was a taxi boom the past years, if you hadn't noticed. So its "one less car off the road" but one too many more taxis and FX-es on the road.

• Then there's the "feeling-exempted" few who have stickers, decals, passes that "exempt" them from the UVVRP scheme.

Traffic is here to stay with or without the color-coding/number-coding and the UVVRP is not the solution.