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