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uby Febrianti, 20, looked pleased after completing her driving course and said she was ready to get behind the wheel if her father decided to buy her a car.

'€œIn the last lesson I could finally parallel park, which I think is the hardest thing about driving,'€ she told The Jakarta Post, adding that her driving instructor helped her a lot in learning how to drive during the one-month course.

However, she acknowledged that her driving instructor did not teach her what constituted common traffic violations, nor tell her not to text while driving, let alone about road etiquette.

Ruby'€™s driving school is not the only place that limits lessons to merely driving.

Ayu Amelia, 17, an 11th grader at SMA 70 Jakarta state high school in Bulungan, South Jakarta, said she took a two-day course with a two-hour driving lesson per day at a driving school in Pondok Kopi, East Jakarta, recently.

She also said she learned most of the points on road etiquette and safety from her parents.

'€œThe driving school did not teach me them,'€ she said, adding that she often asked her father if she did not know the meaning of a particular sign.

The number of traffic accidents in Jakarta has sparked concern as most major ones have involved young people.

Data released by the Jakarta Police reveal that there were 5,991 traffic accidents in Jakarta in 2013, most involving young people as perpetrators or victims. The number slightly decreased to 5,472 accidents in 2014 with total casualties reaching 578.

On Jan. 20 this year, 23-year-old Christopher Daniel Sjarief killed four people when he lost control of a friend'€™s car and crashed into six motorcycles and two cars.

In September 2013, Ahmad Abdul Qodir Jaelani, 13, son of musician Ahmad Dhani, was involved in a deadly pile-up that claimed six lives. Earlier that year, 22-year-old M. Rasyid Amrullah, son of then coordinating economic minister Hatta Rajasa, was behind the wheel of a car that crashed and killed two people on New Year'€™s Day.

However, with the mounting number of fatal crashes involving young people, driving schools continue to turn a blind eye to the part they could play to make sure new drivers learn not only about driving techniques but also road safety and etiquette.

Rini, a marketing staff member at a driving school in Cilandak, South Jakarta, said most learners at the school were teenagers who had just finished senior high school and believed they would get direction on the issues from their
parents.

'€œOf course we will tell them some basic things, such the right lane is for fast vehicles, but to tell them how to behave while driving a car is not our job; that should come from their parents,'€ she said.

It is an open secret that first-time drivers enroll in driving schools not for the lessons but as a shortcut to getting a license.

Many advertise '€œdriver'€™s license guaranteed'€ to students as soon as they finish their lessons with an approximately Rp 400,000 (US$30) additional charge. By taking up the service, a student gets a driver'€™s license without needing to take a driving test.

The driver'€™s license section head at the Jakarta Police'€™s traffic sub-directorate, Comr. I Nengah Adi Putra, said it was illegal and emphasized that the Jakarta Police had no special arrangement with driving schools.

'€œNo matter how good they are or how much they pay the school, people have to take a driving test to obtain a driver'€™s license,'€ he said. (prm)