Motorcyclists and other pesky things ...

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 05/13/2007 7:40 AM | Life

""I have of late been praying to and propitiating the God of Uneven Pavements.""

""The God of ... ?""

""You heard me. Uneven Pavements. You know, what Indonesians call trotoar and Americans prefer to call sidewalks, the raised things down the sides of roads for pedestrians to do what pedestrians do -- walk -- but which every Tom, Dick and Ali on a Jakarta motorcycle thinks is for him too.""

""And her!""

""And her. Every man and woman, in fact, and their 13-year-old sons and daughters.""

""10-year-old.""

""Yes, I have been praying to this snaggle-toothed god that I do not crash groundward over the corner of some upraised paving stone and smash the caps on my front teeth or fall over the imperfectly compacted metal handle of another paving stone put there by the fiberoptic cable people. Worse still, I could plummet into an unseen hole left there by the same crew who simply went away and forgot the wretched thing.""

""And propitiation?""

""I have sacrificed a motorcycle helmet by throwing it in the gapingest hole in a city pavement that I could find. You know, rather like the Tengger people of East Java annually appease the spirits by throwing offerings into the maw of Mount Bromo.""

""The effect so far?""

""The god is as yet unappeased. I fancy he wants a full-blown motorcycle, a Honda or Suzuki.""

""Maybe even a motorcyclist.""

""Like those that mount the pavement and ride straight at you.""

""Expecting you to jump out of the way.""

""Quite so!""

*****

A young Indonesian I recently met told me that since the introduction of the busway in Jakarta many more folk have gone out and bought motorbikes, believing that these will provide a quicker way to and from work.

Dicky, an Indonesian friend, informs me that a business connection of his has told him 500 new motorcycles are retailed in the city daily. It would seem so.

They swarm and shoal, grunt and snarl everywhere you go. They are an absolutely inescapable part of the ""auditory landscape"", to borrow a phrase from the outstanding French historian Alain Corbin.

Mounting pavements and intimidating pedestrians is only the half of it. Jumping traffic lights, riding the wrong way down one-way streets, charging down the wrong side of two-way streets -- any or all of these without lights on -- jinking and shimmying like Cristiano Ronaldo on the ball, they pretty much do as they please.

Some years ago I was in a taxi on Jl. Peconongan, Central Jakarta; having paid the taxi driver from the rear seat I opened -- as you would -- the curbside door.

A motorcycle screeched to a halt only inches away from the frame. A fraction of a second earlier and he would have ripped the door off.

Of course, it was a damn fool thing of his to be trying to come through on the inside but whom did the taxi driver belabor?

Why, me, of course!

What a moron I was to try to get out on the curb rather than the traffic side of his vehicle! The motorcyclist was all injured innocence.

*****

""I have of late also been praying to the God of Pedestrian Crossings.""

""Ah, the one that looks after pedestrians as they try to use Jakarta zebra crossings? That I would say is a real fool's errand!""

""Quite so! But I propitiate him by rolling the odd motorcycle over the zebra crossing. It brings the odd SUV to a halt, sharpish! But truly, what is the point of these crossings in Jakarta? They are about as much use as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.""

""Or as much use as a chocolate teapot!""

-- David Jardine

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