On driver clubs

Having just returned last Monday from a 10-day trip that concluded with a non-stop 20-hour flight, my happiness abated when I read about Mrs. Yuko Nishizawa's nightmarish experience with a driver from the Maulana Drivers Club (Nov. 22, 1996). Since she was referring to an article that I had written, the first thing I did was to call that club. Luckily, I got Pak Amir on the phone, the very person who handled the case Mrs. Nishizawa recounted in her letter. He did not read The Jakarta Post, but was already fully aware of the letter, since several of the club's longtime Japanese customers had called him and informed him about it. He had in fact looked for a copy of the Post in question, clipped out the letter and posted it on his bulletin board.

Pak Amir told me he was himself very shocked to hear about the complaint. As far as he understood it, the Japanese Embassy, the police and the club had agreed to consider the case closed over a year ago when it was established that the source of the problem was a misunderstanding. The driver, according to Pak Amir, had thought he was instructed to wait at Hotel Indonesia, while in fact, he was expected to wait at Hotel President. The driver waited patiently at Hotel Indonesia until 4 o'clock the next morning while the police were searching for him and the car with the CD license plate all over the place. Mrs. Nishizawa apparently jumped too quickly to her conclusion that he had run away with the car.

Pak Amir further said there were two very important facts that Mrs. Nishizawa did not mention in her letter. First, the driver himself phoned the club early that morning because he became worried when the car's owner had not shown up after so many hours. Second, the time stamp on his parking card clearly indicated that he had never left the parking area ever since he entered it the previous afternoon.

Pak Amir confided to me how the conclusion ended up costing the club a fortune. However, the most tragic outcome was that the poor driver got sacked from the club even though, after all, he was not a criminal.

While I can imagine the ordeal Mrs. Nishizawa had to go through, I do not wish this to erupt into a unnecessary debate on who is right and who is wrong. In case she or other readers have any doubt or lingering question about the case, Pak Amir has promised me that he can always be contacted anytime at 780-0133. He will have all the records of the incident ready and can tell you his side of the story.

Finally, I wrote the article to let readers of the Post know that these driver clubs existed, and Maulana was just one of them. I strongly believed a lot of people could benefit from their service, and I still do. However, as I also hinted in the article, there's no stringent recruitment procedure implemented in these clubs. Therefore, you do have to exercise judgment as to how much you can trust a driver that you've just hired from these clubs.

ZATNI ARBI

Jakarta