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Jakarta Post

'€˜Know-it-alls'€™ make up large chunk of drivers

Most Jakartans have heard the joke that when the traffic light turns yellow, it means hit the gas

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Wed, October 29, 2014

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'€˜Know-it-alls'€™ make up large chunk of drivers

M

ost Jakartans have heard the joke that when the traffic light turns yellow, it means hit the gas. The joke implies that drivers in Jakarta know that yellow means prepare to stop but choose to ignore it.

But a road safety specialist has revealed that it is actually no joke as many drivers in Jakarta honestly do not know that yellow means slow down and prepare to stop.

Haridarma Manoppo, a former racing driver who now teaches road safety to drivers at PT Fortuna Stars, told The Jakarta Post that many of his customers '€” including the drivers he taught at the Sentul International Go-Kart Circuit in Bogor, West Java, on Tuesday '€” were ignorant about basic road-safety rules.

'€œI'€™ve had people come to me, who don'€™t know that cars turning left must stay in the left lane from the very beginning and not just slip in whenever they want to. Others don'€™t know that the yellow traffic light means that cars must slow down. Indonesians think they know how to drive when actually they don'€™t. They'€™re know-it-alls,'€ he said.

He added that many long-standing drivers'€™ lack of knowledge showed how easy it was to get a driver'€™s license because they could get it from police stations even without fully understanding traffic regulations.

Under the hot midday sun, school-bus driver Yudo, 45, visibly panicked when he drove a van over a bright orange traffic cone in the parking lot.

Yudo was one of the 14 taxi, rental car, bus and truck drivers participating in a road-safety course offered by PT Tunas Nusantara Edukasi, a company geared toward providing law-based workshops as part of its corporate social responsibility program.

Before driving the practice cars, the participants were given lessons earlier in the morning on various traffic laws and driving etiquette by a policeman and a driving instructor.

Yudo said he learned many things during the lessons and the driving-practice session that he had not known before, including safe braking distances depending on the car'€™s speed.

Haridarma explained that many experienced drivers lacked common sense on unwritten driving etiquette. One example was that drivers should always stop when a bus is stopping in front of them instead of trying to overtake it as passengers may try to cross in front of it.

According to data from the Jakarta Traffic Police, there were 4,373 traffic accidents from January to September this year, which claimed 450 lives.

Separately, Jakarta Traffic Police law enforcement head Adj. Sr. Comr. Hindarsono said the police had made efforts to stop people from buying driver'€™s licenses from agents but added that it was '€œdifficult'€ without elaborating any further.

He said the large number of accidents was mainly caused by traffic-law violations. The most common violation was driving motorized vehicles without a license.

This year the police caught 85,047 people for driving without licenses, 80,615 people for going through stop lights and 62,691 people for driving against the traffic flow.

'€œWe have made many efforts to raise awareness on driving safely by organizing, among other things, safe-driving courses and seminars,'€ he said.

The Jakarta Traffic Police are currently running 13 programs dedicated to promoting road safety in the city. They include teaching children about road safety through stories and songs. The police also visit high schools and universities for road safety seminars.

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