Driving in Indonesia
Driving in Indonesia
The simultaneous publication (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 9, 1995) of the letters from David Stewart and Greg MacDonald to comment on the article entitled Indonesian the worst drivers in the world, which was published three days earlier, may not have been completely fortuitous. They are indeed very entertaining.
David Stewart, on the one hand, would certainly know best what he actually said about local driving habits at the Traffic Management Workshop held in Yogyakarta. Nevertheless, I am amazed to read that he congratulated Indonesia for achieving the relatively low accident rate of 14 deaths per 10,000 vehicles a year. Who is he trying to please? But then, he really is an expert in traffic engineering...So be it.
On the other hand, Greg MacDonald offers a simple, down-to- earth explanation: The answer, he writes, is defensive driving, whereby everyone in Indonesia drives defensively! This is indeed true.
Personally, I am no traffic engineer. However I know the problem as a mere actor on the mean traffic scene of Jakarta's streets. I have played that role without a stuntman -- that is without a driver -- every day for the past five years, so far without accident. I have also driven on Java's notoriously dangerous highways on countless occasions.
To be fair, I must point out that I am no beginner. I have held licenses in Brazil, the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales as well as Indonesia since I learned to drive on the streets of Rio de Janeiro 30 years ago. I have driven around in about 20 countries, with just one accident: A drunkard forced me off the Pacific Highway one night in Queensland and I ended up unscathed in a sugarcane field.
Based on that experience from Buenos Aires to Sydney, from Cape Town to Manila, Amsterdam, Paris, London or Rome, and not on statistics, I am afraid I have to confirm that, in general, Indonesians are the worst drivers I have ever come across, if not the worst in the world. And they do indeed drive defensively. Furthermore, most of them apply the Napoleonic principle: La meilleure defense, c'est l'attaque.
Sure enough, defensive driving here is absolutely essential, not only in urban traffic, but even more so on the highways. Anyone who has experienced the trauma of driving, particularly in peak periods, on, say, the Jakarta-Semarang or the Surabaya- Malang highways, would clearly know what I mean. Inter-city buses, that is hundreds of them, speeding away as if their drivers are crazy: constant lane changing and murderous overtaking maneuvers, always at the last second; vehicles of all types tailing others at high speed just one meter behind them; constant overtaking activity on the breakdown lanes of the tollways: all of this, and more, is the normal scene.
I have no idea how David Stewart, as a traffic engineer, would implement his "channelization" theory to improve bad driving styles, and how effective that measure could be, but I guess that it would be pretty hard. Let us face reality: Things are not likely to improve much until two long-term actions are undertaken simultaneously. The first is serious education about traffic matters, rules and safety, which should start in primary schools. The second is tough police action based on a realistic scheme of deterrents including heavy penalties, not merely small cash occasionally changing hands, as is currently the norm. Then, and only then, will channelization -- and whatever else -- become a reality.
J. PAUL BRAIBANT
Tangerang, West Java