Jakarta streets death traps for children, young adults

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The authorities warned that more children are being seriously injured and killed in traffic accidents on Jakarta's streets.

Comr. Warsinem, the head of the traffic engineering section at the Jakarta Traffic Police, said young people's lack of awareness of traffic safety regulations played a major part in this regrettable trend.

"We often see (schoolchildren) hitching free rides in the backs of open trucks or on top of train cars, putting themselves at risk of serious injury," she said during a workshop on Tuesday organized by the Institute for Transportation Studies (Instran), Swisscontact, the Indonesian Children's Welfare Foundation and the City Basic Education Agency.

Failure to observe basic safety rules while walking on busy streets is another cause of children being caught in traffic accidents, the police officer added.

"We are also seeing more cases of underage children driving motorized vehicles and causing fatal traffic accidents," she said.

Warsinem underlined the importance of teaching children about traffic rules and regulations when they were still young.

Instran director Darmaningtyas said the poor infrastructure for pedestrians and public transportation passengers was a major cause of traffic accidents.

"Sidewalks here are commonly occupied by street vendors, forcing people to walk in the road and putting themselves at risk of being hit by passing vehicles," Darmaningtyas said.

The absence of pedestrian bridges on most busy roads, he said, also put pedestrians, especially children and students, at risk.

"That is why we have invited school boards in the capital to take part in a project that directly involves all stakeholders in the community, including students and parents, to draw up safe routes for students to their respective schools," he said.

On the route maps, students and parents are asked to point out locations along the route from their homes to school that they believe are prone to crime and traffic accidents, or which do not have proper transportation infrastructure.

"The maps will be passed on to the relevant institutions, like the City Transportation Agency, the traffic police and the City Public Order Agency to follow up on," he said.

According to police data from last year, there were about 350 traffic accidents a month, 20 percent of which somehow involved children.

A total of 1,146 people died in traffic accidents last year, up from 503 people in 2003. The number of serious injuries rose from 665 people in 2003 to 2,632 in 2004.

A joint survey by Instran and non-governmental organization Pelangi last year found that 65 percent of deaths in all traffic accidents were pedestrians. Of that 65 percent, 35 percent were children.