City students to study road safety

The Jakarta Police are designing a student manual on traffic ethics and road safety that will be integrated into school curriculums in Jakarta, in order to help prevent accidents in the city’s wild traffic.

“We are hoping to instill traffic discipline in children to improve their driving and to reduce accidents,” police Traffic Division chief Sr. Comr. Condro Kirono said Tuesday.

There were 6,125 traffic accidents in the city between January and August, 70 percent of which were motorcycle accidents. Of the 6,981 accident victims, 17 percent were between the ages of 11 and 20.

Last year there were 7,329 traffic accidents in Jakarta.

All public schools in the city, including kindergartens, elementary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools and vocational schools, are expected to implement the police guidelines.

The police and several other parties, including motorcycle maker PT Astra Honda Motor and PT Shell Indonesia, will work together to design the manual.

Condro, Jakarta Education Agency head Taufik Yudi Mulyanto, PT Shell Indonesia’s president director Darwin Silalahi and PT Astra Honda Motor representative Kristianto signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU).

The parties have worked to create the curriculum-integrated guidelines for traffic safety and ethics since March.

“Traffic behavior is a reflection of a society and a culture. It also sustains people’s lives, especially in relation to economics,” Condro said during the MoU signing ceremony. He added that road users must understand traffic ethics and rules.

“These rules will become entrenched if they are taught to people from an early age. They will become accustomed to such road ethics. People can easily forget the rules of the road if they are introduced to them only briefly,” he said.

Condro said that stricter law enforcement alone could not make any significant traffic behavior changes.

“We discovered that those who were given tickets actually did not understand traffic ethics and road safety. Some did not even understand why they were stopped,” he said.

The police also found that some people only learned traffic rules when taking the required test for a driver’s license.

“The challenge is that we will not see immediate results. But I believe we can build a generation with more respect for the road. Discipline is a kind of investment,” he said.

According to Condro, the police had previously implemented traffic familiarization programs for children with slogans such as “the police are a child’s best friend” and “the police go to campus.”

He added not every school or university could cover the costs of such programs.

The City Education Agency will print about 6,000 manuals for distribution to all Jakarta schools. Distribution of books and the project implementation is scheduled to begin next year.

“Traffic education will be integrated with school subjects such as math, religion, physics, physical education and sports, instead of creating a new subject on traffic,” Taufik said, adding that the agency would also train teachers.

“There are 1.6 million students in the city. They are all road users, as passengers and drivers. They all use public transportation and private vehicles,” he said.

State insurance company PT Jasa Raharja Jakarta branch head Mustamar Karimi said that his office paid a total of Rp 1.3 trillion (US$145.6 million) for traffic accidents nationwide. (ipa)