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strong>June 22, p9

Umar Ghofur, 34, learned the cost of recklessness of riding a motorcycle in Greater Jakarta after his teenage son, Teddy, was involved in a traffic accident while riding a motorcycle with a classmate in Depok, West Java, last year.

Umar said on Wednesday that he would have prohibited Teddy, a 10th grader, from going out if he had known that his son was going to drive a motorcycle without wearing a helmet and against the traffic flow.

Your comments:

This sounds like the main problem is only how they obtain a driving license (SIM). No this is not the main problem; enforcement is still the main problem. A sting for a few days is not the answer. Constant enforcement of the law is.

Yes, it is easy to buy a motorcycle and then make low payments for a very long time. The volume of motorcycle financing makes a lot of money for the finance companies. One needs to wonder who was involved with this easy buying of motorcycles to begin with? This should probably change.

Get back to the minimum 20 percent down payment. Every man, woman, and child doesn'€™t need a motorcycle but the numbers sure make it look like they do.

If ever the city expects to build public transportation then along with building it, they need to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads. To do this they need to start taking away motorcycles from the unlicensed, unsafe drivers. When people start losing their motorcycles and they still have payments to make, you know they will default on them and then the finance companies will need to take another look at just who they are financing.

Of course, enforcing the current laws would need police that actually followed the rules in enforcing such laws. How about a bonus system? Cash for points for any motor vehicle infraction they ticket? The state would benefit with increased revenue from the ticketing allowing the point system to produce some cash.

X Simaging