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unday'€™s fatal car crash on the Jagorawi toll road involving Ahmad Abdul Qodir Jaelani, the 13-year-old son of prominent musician Ahmad Dhani, is an accident that could happen to anyone'€™s kid. The deadly pile-up, which claimed six lives, deserves to be highlighted not because of its link to one of the country'€™s most popular celebrities, but because of the worrying trend of underage children easily turning into street monsters.

Jakarta Police named the teenager a suspect and may charge him with violating the 2009 Transportation and Traffic Control Law for causing an accident that claimed lives. There is also the possibility that the police will hold the boy'€™s parents, Dhani and his ex-wife Maia Estianti, accountable for allegedly providing an opportu-nity for their minor child, better known as Dul, to drive a car.

Law enforcement related to the accident on Sunday is an issue that will evoke a lengthy debate, as the country'€™s justice system has treated each of the previous cases of fatal traffic accidents differently, if not discriminatory. A woman, Afriyani Susanti, was sentenced to 15 years for driving under the influence of alcohol and killing nine pedestrians; the son of Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa, M. Rasyid Amrullah, received a suspended jail term after he was found guilty of reckless driving that claimed two lives; and Dwigusta Cahya has to serve one year of imprisonment for reckless driving that killed a family of five.

For better or worse the accident involving Dul is an eye opener for us all about how risky our failure to keep our children from driving motorized vehicles. The sight of minors riding, or precisely speeding on, motorcycles or cars is so ubiquitous that everybody pays no heed to its consequences until an accident occurs.

The Jakarta Police data revealed that traffic accidents perpetrated by children exceeded 100 cases in 2012, up by 160 percent from the previous year. For the National Commission on Child Protection the statistics mirror lax enforcement of the law as well as a lack of commitment on the part of parents and the society to protection of the minors.

Prevention is always better than medication. The police, due to their limited resources, however, will be unable to conduct license checks every day just to scare children who are eager to ride or drive motorized vehicles.

Home and school are the most ideal places for children to learn about traffic regulations, which clearly say that children below 17 years old are not entitled to a driver'€™s license and, therefore, access to motorized vehicles. The age rule is of course based on scientific studies. As the child protection commission chairman and psychologist Seto Mulyadi puts it, parents who ignore the regulations only groom their kids to become street killers.

Schools can and should educate children to uphold traffic and road safety regulations, including a ban on the driving of motorized vehicles among students.