Jakarta and The Motorcyclist

Introduction

No offense here..

Just being honest..

Majority pictures a thousand words. Minority, a singer without a voice.

but really,

I HATE MOTORCYCLE RIDERS IN JAKARTA!

Issues

Facts:

• Lack of disciplines

Seriously, not stopping when traffic lights turn red. Drove in the opposite way although it's clearly signed as one way road. Random U-Turn. Travelling without helmet. No lights in the nighttime.

• God like behavior

God make no mistakes, God decides who is right who is wrong. Same goes for the motorcyclist in Jakarta. Collision with your car? never hope that the motorcyclist will said a simple sorry word to you. Driving in the wrong lane? "who cares". Not wearing a helmet? " I'm invisible".

• Extreme increase in the motorcycles number on the road with 3.5 million currently active in Jakarta (300 percent growth in 4 years!) while the road only grew by 10 percent.

This one is a real serious issue that the new elected president SBY should address first. Because at this rate by 2014 Jakarta traffic will be dead. Probably its like driving 10 hours from Pondok Indah to Fatmawati while normally it took us about 30 minutes max.

• According to some data from the Jakarta police official, 88 percent of the accidents in Jakarta which numbers around 3500 accidents involved motorcyclists last year alone (Jakarta Post, 2009).

With the major motorcycle dealer only focusing on the increase of the sales from their product with cheap price and easy financing it only worsened the condition. Where is the social responsibilities? where is the safety promotion in their ads? Loud applause to our motorcycle dealers!!!!! NO WONDERS ACCIDENT ALWAYS OCCURRED!!

• Motorcycle sucks, so does all the parents who bought it

This one is crazy, Where else on earth you can find 9 years old kid driving around motorcycle as fast as hell without helmet? Jakarta! Where the hell is their bloody parents? what did those kids parents are teaching them? Are they really care about their kids? for god sake. Oh well, people only learn when shit happens.

• Criminals prefer motorcycle to car to execute criminal acts.

RX king is everyone favorites for pickpocketing!.

So called irresponsible parents

Major concerns

As the price of oil and cars are in the extreme hike, major financial crisis are still lurking us. Motorcycle is actually a better solution for majority of Indonesian instead of broken public transport system. Motorcycle is cheap, reliable, easy to drive around and taken far less road spaces compare to other motor vehicles.

However proper education and strict law should be in place first to walk along the growth of motorcycle which sadly is far from the truth. Bribing a police is common practice therefore driving around in Jakarta is like driving in the jungle, no right and wrong no law only the strongest win. (political connection?)

Driving license system in Indonesia is really need a major rebuilt. As anyone with guts only basically can drive around in Jakarta. And people can apply their driving license just simply by paying the officials.

I know that motorcycle sales contributes greatly to the income tax money in Indonesia but should the government traded the traffic condition with tax income? I don't think so.

Somehow I foreseen that motorcycle is being used as a tool for the low income people to express their feelings that road is belong to them as well not for the rich only. "fuck cars, I'm faster I can do anything I want with my motor". Although its not always the case, many do so. Again proper education should be in place.

Although I said much of bad things, the good things is there for example it gives a lot of people steady income. From the Ojek driver to the factory workers who assemble the bikes. What about the sales team and the mechanics? I support every legal way of making money and this is no different.

In the end,

PLEASE READ MY WRITING AND HAVE A DEEP THOUGHT ESPECIALLY ALL THE PEOPLE I MENTIONED ABOVE.

Am I right? am I wrong? hate me? love me? who cares. -R-