Letter #1

Letter #1

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a student of Ipeka Bilingual High School and my name is Cindy. Every day, when I go to school, I always experience traffic jams. There are so many cars on the street and some of them do not obey the traffic rules. I have never taken any public transportation, because it is not safe. There are also many crimes committed inside the public transportation.

There are actually many forms of public transportation in Jakarta, but all of them are not safe, so people who have enough money tend to buy their own cars. Because of this, one family may have more than one car. The tax of car ownership is not expensive and the price of the cars is quite affordable. Therefore, the quantity of cars in Jakarta increases everyday.

The huge amount of cars causes traffic jams. Moreover, not all of the motorists obey the traffic rules. If they get caught by policemen, most of them will solve this problem by bribing the policemen. We can say [that] traffic rules don't have enough power to overcome traffic jams.

I believe there are some solutions the government can find to overcome this problem. The first step would be to increase the tax on car ownership, so that the quantity of cars doesn't increase over and over again. Secondly, the government could improve the quality of public transportation in Jakarta. I believe if the public transportation was better, people would not hesitate to take it. The third solution would be to force the citizens of Jakarta, especially the motorists and public transportation drivers, to obey the traffic rules.

I am sure that my proposals would work. Some people may show disagreement on the increase of tax, so the government must give compensation to solve this problem by providing good quality public transportation. This way, people don't have to own private vehicles, because public transportation would be more comfortable and safe enough to take. By enforcing the traffic rules, the motorists and the public transportation drivers would be more disciplined.

I also hope the readers will obey the traffic rules, especially the traffic lights. When we take the public transportation, for instance a bus, it is suggested that we get down from the bus at the place where it should stop. Therefore, buses would not stop [wherever] they want.

I hope my ideas will be considered, because they might be useful to make Jakarta a better place to live in. I also hope that we can change the image of Jakarta from a crowded, messy metropolitan city into a more organized city. Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Yours sincerely, Cindy Samoto