She could say the same thing about this hack who’s getting grumpier in direct proportion to age.

But what brought about this recollection is another headline in the Metro section of our favorite newspaper — Motorists appeal anew for a unified traffic plan.

That brought out an immediate screamer: "There was one in Metro Manila, you fools, until every other mayor thought they could better handle traffic and, of course, the fines collected, and set about drafting their own traffic code and implementing them and, yes, collecting the fines."

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority attempted to come up with a uniform traffic code for the metropolis, coordinate traffic control systems, centralize collections of fines through banks, and even come up with a system to catch traffic violators with the use of cameras.

But everyone ganged up on the MMDA and its plans — transport groups whose chief complaint is that the MMDA is strictly implementing traffic regulations, private motorists who like to commit all traffic violations known to man and believe their human rights are violated if they are caught at it especially by undergrad traffic enforcers and the all-seeing cameras, and mayors whose chief complaint is that they don’t like the MMDA chief.

Every other road user and those who live and make a living on the sidewalks complained about everything the MMDA came up with. Remember the wet flags, the U-turns, the no-left turns?

It got to a point where even the MMDA charter was the subject of complaint and even court cases. Does it have authority to do anything beyond meeting with mayors and scratching their backs? According to the mayors, that’s all the MMDA has the power to do: do their bidding. At least, do the bidding of the mayors’ council. And when majority of mayors agree with the MMDA chief, the minority has the right to refuse to cooperate with the MMDA, and now every fiefdom in the metropolis has its traffic code and its own knights in varicolored livery to implement the code. And the motorists and public transport drivers are complaining.

We need a uniform traffic plan, they cry. And make it nationwide, they plead. And please, pretty please, as soon as possible. Only one government agency to deal with traffic citations.

The MMDA couldn’t do it even with a hero at its helm. And many doubt the national government — whether parliamentary or presidential — can answer their prayers.

And even if there is just one ticketing system in place and one nationwide traffic code, people will still complain.

It’s not the traffic code or who is doing the implementing.

Motorists – private or public — just don’t like getting caught violating traffic and as we do like violating traffic rules.

There’s really just one solution here: Don’t violate traffic rules.