Driving skills on toll roads still poor: Observers<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Sixteen years after Jakarta's first toll road
\nopened many drivers are still unaware of proper traffic behavior,
\nexperts said Saturday.<\/p>\n
Traffic researcher Agus Bari Sailendra from the Ministry of
\nPublic Works' institute of road engineering said this was evident
\nbecause 70 percent of toll road accidents involved no other
\nvehicles and accidents in which cars hit the vehicle in front of
\nthem.<\/p>\n
Agus said many drivers still could not estimate things like
\nspeed and wheel pressure.<\/p>\n
Writer Willy Dreeskandar from paper Otomotif said drivers
\nstill violated basic rules like driving slowly in the right lane.<\/p>\n
\"These drivers will not move to the left, even though other
\ncars have sounded their horns repeatedly, until patrol officers
\ntell them to,\" Willy said.<\/p>\n
Agus said he did not have exact figures but said on average
\nthere were 10,000 fatal accidents in Indonesia a year.<\/p>\n
\"A relatively small number or about 100 happen on toll roads,\"
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
\"But from the pattern of accidents, awareness of driving on
\ntoll roads is still low,\" Agus said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday eight people died, including a two-year-old, when
\ntheir van burst into flames on the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road.
\nOne of the survivors died the next day.<\/p>\n
Also on Friday five people were injured in seven accidents
\ninvolving 14 cars on the Jagorawi toll road. But drivers said
\nheavy rain and poor vision caused the accidents.<\/p>\n
\"From the average number of accidents, 70 percent can be
\nattributed to drivers, 20 percent to road conditions and the rest
\nto natural causes,\" Agus said.<\/p>\n
In the Cikampek accident the drive shaft of the vehicle
\nsnapped, scraping against the asphalt and spreading sparks to the
\nfuel tank.<\/p>\n
The L 300 Mitsubishi van carrying 16 people was hired, but not
\nfrom a formal rental company. It left Pancoran in South Jakarta
\nand was going to Cirebon which is about 290 kilometers away.<\/p>\n
All types<\/p>\n
A patrol officer estimated the van was about 10 years old, but
\nAgus said toll road accidents involved \"all types of cars, new
\nand old, and luxury sedans.\"<\/p>\n
Both said it was hard to control people who rented cars
\ninformally.<\/p>\n
\"The relationship is based only on trust,\" Willy said.<\/p>\n
Agus said drivers were not used to maintaining a safe distance
\nfrom the next car at a speed of 100 kilometers an hour.<\/p>\n
A safe distance would be 100 meters, he said.<\/p>\n
If the distance is too close the driver can easily crash into
\nthe car in front if it suddenly brakes.<\/p>\n
\"It takes just two seconds and the driver (at the back) would
\nnot even have time to recover from shock and apply brakes in
\ntime,\" Agus said.<\/p>\n
Often tires burst because the air pressure is wrong for high-
\nspeed freeway driving, he said.<\/p>\n
The 50-kilometer Jagorawi toll road was opened in 1978, while
\nthe Cikampek-Jakarta road, which is 72 kilometers long, opened in
\n1987. (anr\/11)<\/p>",
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