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Jakarta car culture is choking us to death and we’re all fine about it
For the majority of white-collar workers in Jakarta, spending at least four hours per day inside their cars, traveling at a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour is still the best way to commute, as it can provide them with shelter from the city’s punishing heat and the polluted air of their own making.
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Vehicles pass on Jalan Gatot Soebroto, Jakarta, on May 26, 2020. (Antara/Aprillio Akbar)
People in Jakarta love their cars and these folks love their big, gas-guzzling, black-tinted SUVs to the point of absurdity.
For the majority of white-collar workers in Jakarta, spending at least four hours per day inside their cars, traveling at a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour is still the best way to commute, as it can provide them with shelter from the city’s punishing heat and the polluted air of their own making. (Although studies have shown that the pollution level inside a car is actually often higher than the environment around them, so the sense of shelter from the air quality outside is actually an illusion).
For most of the wealthy and the well-heeled, being chauffeured around in one of those bulky SUVS and being dropped off at the exact point of their destination is a status symbol.
For these people, it seems like nothing can give them a sense of self-worth more than being saluted by security guards or lobby-boy at the city’s swanky hotels and shopping malls who open the door for them.
For them, it is better to be late for lunch or dinner due to traffic than having to exit their cars and walk to their destination. If you are curious why traffic congestion always occurs in the vicinity of shopping malls, this is likely the reason.
And if you wonder why the traffic is mostly worst in the morning, blame those middle-class parents who want to show love and affection to their kids by shipping them off to school in an air-conditioned private sedan or SUV.
For the majority of people in the middle-to-low income bracket, especially non-Jakarta natives, owning a car is again a status symbol, a sign of success that they have made it in the big city.
