Arist Merdeka Sirait: National Commission on Child Protection (Komnas PA) chairman. JP/Nurhayati

The horrific car accident on Jl. Sudirman over the weekend has forced the nation to re-evaluate driving habits among teenagers who might lack basic driving skills or may be simply too young to drive.

National Commission on Child Protection (Komnas PA) chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait said that he believed the minimum driving age in the country, stipulated in the 2009 Traffic Law to be 17 years of age, might be too low. “The 2002 Child Protection Law stipulates that a person under 18 years old is still legally a child. I think the minimum driving age should be changed to make it equal to this stipulation,” he told The Jakarta Post in a phone interview on Monday.

He believed someone aged over 18 years will have adequate maturity and reasoning that would significantly reduce the possibility of endangering himself or herself and others.

Indri Savitri, a counseling and education manager at the University of Indonesia’s Applied Psychology Institute, argued that even if teenagers are mature enough to drive, they need to be educated to drive safely and properly.

Arist and Indri said that the accident should be a wake-up call for the police, parents and teachers at school to improve their safe driving campaigns. “We should be really serious in spreading information related with safe driving, given the fact that the number of teen drivers is up, day to day,” Indri said.

A car crash took place on early Saturday, when 17-year-old Olivia Dewi drove a Nissan Juke at a high speed and crashed into a billboard pole in front of the Wisma Nugra Santana building before the vehicle burst into flames.

Olivia died in the accident, while her friend, 20-year-old Joy Sebastian, was severely injured and was treated at Gading Pluit Hospital in North Jakarta. There was eyewitness testimony that the driver seemed to have lost control of the vehicle shortly before the crash.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said that the police had supported numerous safety driving campaigns at schools and communities in the city. “The program was coordinated by the traffic police’s education and traffic management subdirectorate and is specially targeted to reach teen drivers who have just obtained their licenses,” he told The Jakarta Post.

Traffic police deputy chief Sr. Comr. Wahyono said that the police had many programs to implement the campaign. Two of the programs are “Police Goes to Campus” and “Police as Friends of Children”.

“Apart from that, we also have a monthly program in which traffic police officers serve as inspectors on flag ceremonies at schools in Jakarta,” he said. “The officers will talk about safety driving issues during the ceremonies.”

With car sales surging annually, more and more teenagers are now driving on Jakarta’s streets.

Zaky, a student of SMA Al Azhar senior high school, said that he obtained his driver’s license one year ago, as soon as he reached the age of 17. “I did not falsify my age to get the driver’s license. I received the license one month after my 17th birthday.”

Miranti Alia Devi, an 18-year-old student at a state high school, said that she had driven the car since she was 15, but only to places near her house in Cilandak, South Jakarta.

“Driving a car requires a lot of practice. I did practice by driving my mother to a nearby department store or taking my grandmother to a clinic. Our driver always accompanied me during practice,” she said.

After a recent car crash involving two teenagers in Central Jakarta, Alia said that her parents reminded her not to drive too fast at night. “The roads are less crowded at night. I tend to drive faster, but from now on, I will drive more carefully,” she said.

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