By The Way: Visit Indonesia and catch God Shiva at the wheel

Sun, 03/30/2008 2:18 AM  |  Headlines

For the sake of Visit Indonesia Year, all citizens should chip in and make the city a better place. Easier said than done, no doubt, few even care care for their own safety.

Our distinguished guests and tourists may be ushered away from the unsightly scenes we have -- though it might be amusing if you're watching from a very far distance.

Consider the agile motorist with the mobile in hand, the steering wheel in the other, or if it's the right hand with the mobile and the left on the radio switch then he's driving with his elbow, or his knee.

While making a U-turn, my friend once took a phone call, searched for a number on his set, typed it in, said merrily, "Sebentar ya pak* (Wait a minute*)", and sent it to the guy on the other end -- whoa*

I tried to copy him but failed.

Such drivers are inevitably the role model of the kids and teenagers in the back seat when they're old enough to drive-and-multi-task -- which is often 15 or less.

And the infant is sometimes in mummy's or daddy's lap.

That's how we easterners (orang timur) love our families ever so dearly, we don't keep them physically apart like those orang barat who have babies crying in separate rooms, no way.

The lucky tourist may catch a motorist who has Shiva-like hands, at least a dozen of them which have grown all on their own because of years of this multi-tasking.

Drivers of chartered SUVs have another hand to maneuver around the DVD switch, for they must keep awake with those exciting dangdut and house music videos on long trips and for the long waiting hours.

A famous American columnist once wrote how he didn't even get a "Good evening" when he was picked up by a taxi in Paris as the driver was phoning, listening to music, watching his DVD all the way to the hotel.

That was a really rude driver. But the bigshot should have known, now is the ME generation, I'm told, from whom you can't expect much respect and whose members can only vaguely tell George Bush from all the other bigwigs.

Woosssh* A motorbike crosses in front of you, the rider on his mobile.

And the lovely lady in a pink veil and pink trousers on a pink bike has a friend and baby on the backseat -- and she, the driver, is also on her mobile.

The helmet?

Irrelevant -- so are headlights at night*

These drivers either have nine eyes or nine lives, and assume everyone else does, for while they can afford cigarettes they'd say they have no money for lights.

"I'm only driving around here*" is the excuse for no helmets, no lights, no license. Cuma putar-putar sini*

Like the automobile driver, the "driving around here" is often with the baby sister or the neighbor's infant son in the front seat, with one hand driving if the third hand of Shiva has not grown. When driver and passenger tire of the small residential complex, of course they venture to the main road, which is still in the vicinity of the putar-putar sini.

The motorbike and automobile drive has replaced for many the jalan-jalan sore, the afternoon walk. This means leisure time, leisure driving, while chatting with the motorbike driver riding alongside yours. The motorists getting confused at the back do not matter one bit.

I've been mulling the idea of asking my neighboring policewoman to please give us all a course on road safety, but I need to work with the other ladies and figure out how to package it in an attractive way. Maybe with a fashion show of motorbike drivers with matching helmets.

Because I've run out of sensible-sounding words for fellow motorists who I thought needed some lecturing, the ibu polisi would be the best way to explain why on earth you need a driving license when you've already managed to get a mortgage on that prize, the purple bike, a few driving lessons and matching boots like singer Agnes Monica in the motorbike ad.

--Ati Nurbaiti

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