Traffic woes: the pedestrian crossing

On my way to UP, I had to cross a pededtrian lane to get to the jeepney stop. This lane bears white lines perpendicular to the direction the pedestrians take and a solid line parallel to that direction.

With my limited knowledge of traffic signs, I know that straight lines on the road mean that vehicles must remain on their side of the road for the entire length of that line and broken lines mean they can go from one side of the lane to the other cautiously.

Applying this principle in pedestrian lanes, I surmise that the two solid lines on either side of the pedestrian lane means vehicles must stop for pedestrians.

Alas, it does not hold true.

In the pedestrian lane that I and other people take to get to the jeepney stop, it is the pedestrians who must give way to the vehicles. While some drivers do stop to let pedestrians cross, most do not.

Is is because the drivers believe that they have the right of way because they are enclosed in a metal shell running at 20 kilometers an hour and we are not?

Is it because nobody has been seriously convicted of reckless driving resulting to severe physical injuries? In fairness to the authorities, some have. Except that those convicted are the poor careless-drivers-trying-to-making-ends-meet while the rich ones with fancy cars and next-to-nothing-road-safety-seminar-compliance get off the hook.

Or is it because licensing in this country is so easy? To get a license in our poor suffering country, all you got to do is pay up extra to take a written exam using an already-answered-test paper, and drive a car forward and backward.

Lots of new cars flood into this country. We do not only lack roads to accommodate all these vehicles, we also lack drivers who know how to use those roads.