Clunk, click, buckling up worth your trip

Clunk, click, buckling up worth your trip

"You're joking, aren't you?" was the practically cynical response
from a friend to the warning that "you had better put your seat
belt on because you'll be in trouble, if the traffic police see
you without it on".

Old habits die-hard, and so do bad habits. The truth is that
you are now obliged to use a seat belt when traveling in a car in
Jakarta and this is a good thing, not something that we should be
cynical about.

But the awful truth about traveling in Jakarta is that you can
consistently see things that are not only frightening but also
downright dangerous. It seems that people often do not think
about their own safety and so it is reasonable for safe, or at
least safer, practices to be required of them by law.

The law now proposes that anyone caught not wearing their seat
belt can face a fine of Rp 1 million (about US$116) or even a
sentence of a month in jail. Perhaps this kind of penalty will
get people to see the common sense of buckling up. Then again,
perhaps not.

Take the example of a family traveling on one of the toll
roads that sweeps through the center of Jakarta. With the car
traveling at high speed, the mother in the family was sitting in
the rear seat with one of the children. Up-front in the passenger
seat sat another child beaming out of the window, totally free
from the restraint of a seat belt.

The greatest concern came when viewing the driver's seat. The
father of the family sat behind the wheel but standing on his lap
was a toddler grabbing hold of the steering wheel.

The family car sped through traffic at such a rate that
overtaking maneuvers were required of the driver -- the father,
not the toddler -- all the while having to compensate for the
fact that his toddler son was not only restricting his movement
but also reducing his vision.

Has this father never seen those images of crash test dummies
being hurled through car windows following an impact? Has this
father never been horrified by the slow motion whiplash of the
crash test dummies' necks, legs, arms et al as they are
catapulted through glass?

Apparently, neither the common sense of buckling up nor the
potential horrors of a high speed impact have reached these
people's minds, nor the requirement by law to buckle up has not
reached them either. Common sense safety quite often seems to be
in short supply on the roads.

Motorcyclists too can show an apparent complete disregard for
safety that can only leave a safety conscious person
flabbergasted. A motorcycle often becomes a family vehicle, with
children squashed between their parents riding pillion in a way
that makes you fear for their welfare. As many as four children
can be seen squeezed between mom and dad.

What is perhaps most disturbing about this is that the only
person wearing a helmet is the father steering the motorbike.
Cynically, it might be concluded that he only cares for his own
safety. But no, when an accident happens -- of course -- the
father is deeply concerned about his family..

Jakarta may, then, have its enforcement of seat belts but how
long will it take before there is enforcement of the use of
helmets for motorbike riders, whether adults or children? The
seat belt enforcement has been assessed as being well
implemented, with figures quoted as high as 90 percent usage, but
random inspection on the roads does not seem to back-up such
figures.

The friend who considered it a joke to be asked to use his
seat belt explained why people are reluctant to conform to the
rules.

In his words, people here are just too bandel -- they just do
not have that kind of discipline. Well, whether bandel, let's
just hope that a little more common sense can be applied and
buckling up will become a good habit that people have, without
having a traffic cop chase them to do it.

-- Simon Marcus Gower