Notorious: Motorists commute along Jakarta'€™s traffic jam. AFP/ Bayu Ismoyo

The best advice a defensive driving consultant can give is to not drive at all, if you can avoid it.

'€œAdvanced communications technology has been able to reduce the need to move to places. Why not use it as an advantage?'€ said Jusri Pulubuhu, the founder of Jakarta-based road safety and defensive-driving training operator JDCC.

If applied, it would certainly be the most effective way to save the environment from a massive use of fuel, while solving the traffic issues in Jakarta.

But really: in Indonesia, 30,000 people are killed in traffic accidents per year and 60 percent of that number was recorded in Greater Jakarta and West Java.

As of last year, traffic accidents sat second from the top as the cause of death in Indonesia, after venereal diseases, and it is killer number six for children under 5.

Most of the victims came from the productive age bracket, between 5 and 44 years old. Jusri said most drivers, if not all, are not professionals and have little knowledge of road ethics.'€œThe roads are the killing fields. It needs more than just good reflexes to get out of there unscathed,'€ he said.

In dire need of an intervention, he suggested that lessons on safe driving and road ethics should be introduced to children from an early age.

'€œChildren tend to mimic the adults around them, including their parents, family drivers, public minivan, or motorcycle taxi drivers.

'€œWe don'€™t want them to think that cutting lines, speeding, or running through a red light is normal when they are old enough to drive,'€ said Jusri.

Jusri recently visited SMA 2 public high school on Jl. Gajah Mada, Central Jakarta, to talk about safe driving, a talk organized by France-based oil company Total as part of its corporate social responsibility program.

Other speakers were racers Denny Pribadi and Suhardiman Umar. Total Indonesia'€™s marketing head, Veronica Utami, said the driving clinic was meant to support the Health Ministry'€™s program to reduce the number of deaths in traffic accidents.

Headmistress Suharti Latifah welcomed the initiative, which she said could prevent her students from being involved in reckless driving. Jusri said parents should discourage children from driving until they reached 17, when they become relatively stable emotionally.

'€œDriving is not about skill, per se, as it also involves cognition, empathy and controlled emotion. It'€™s a full-time job that brooks no distraction whatsoever.'€

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