November 26, 2008

Recipe for an accident

Last weekend I hopped on a busway from Pulomas to Harmoni when half way through the driver (female driver) received a text message. I was quite worried when she started to read the incoming messages but became even more concerned when she started replying whilst driving one handed. She then called the person who probably sent her the text message and was having an animated discussion while having her other hand off the wheel. As if that was not enough she also speeds and honked constantly at everyone (esp. at the U-turn). Personally I find it annoying to see people using cell phones whilst driving. Whether you use the hand held or hands free device makes no difference. It is not holding the phones which is the problem, it's the loss of concentration which occurs while talking on a phone. I have truly been disgruntled by what I saw. In Jakarta we have many dangerous drivers to begin with on our streets. We have people who are given driver licenses who really should not have a license. I don't know how many times I read the number of accidents involving motorists/pedestrians along Jakarta’s busway as reported by the Jakarta Post below. Yeah...busway is quick and cheap..but dangerous too!! The picture above was taken by my cellphone from my seat.

Busway accident takes another toll
Indah Setiawati , The Jakarta Post | Thu, 08/14/2008 5:04 PM | Jakarta

Jakarta's famous urban transportation system Busway takes another toll on Thursday with one of its busses running over a 31-year old woman crossing the street at Jl. Otista Raya, Jatinegara, East Jakarta.

The city police reported that the woman was instantly killed during the incident and that the body was later taken to state-owned Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital.

"Accidents often happen at Busway's corridors," said City Police Accident Division chief Comr. Herman Ruswandi said and added that investigators were still studying the result from
field examination.

According to records gathered by The Jakarta Post, since its first inception in January 2004, at least there have been 28 street accidents involving Busway busses, killing 16 and many more were wounded. JP~


Motorist killed in busway lane
Sat, 06/14/2008 11:07 AM | City

JAKARTA: A motorcyclist was killed by a Transjakarta bus on Jl. Latuharhari in South Jakarta on Friday morning when she tried to cross a busway lane.

The City Police traffic management center reported Sri Wahyuni, from Ngawi, East Java, hit the Transjakarta bus on Corridor VI at a high speed as it was making a turn.

South Jakarta Police are currently investigating the case. -JP

12 comments:

Devi Girsang, MD said...

I'm not surprised. I believe since TransJakarta has its own lane, all those drivers assume they can do whatever they want -as long as it stays on the busway track.
---
Anyway.
(tentang body butter)
Saya juga cuma review apa yg aku rasain, toh di posting asli-nya emang saya ga bisa ngebandingin dengan patent brand. Cuma krn ada yg tanya, ya saya jawab. Jgn salah sangka, saya ikut bangga kok produk dalam negeri juga ikut berkembang, oleh krn itu di akhir posting saya tulis bahwa saya selalu suka mencari produk2 yg kualitasnya bagus tapi murah juga :) Saya cuma berharap, review-nya bisa dijadikan kritik membangun, bukan sebaliknya. ^o^

Elyani said...

@Devi: what I don't understand is busway have their own lanes but they have cost a number of civilians getting injured or getting killed either through the motorists/pedestrians negligence or by the crazy driving speed of the busway driver.

Anonymous said...

I'm most paranoid when I drive and there are calls or text-messages coming in. I usually reply the messages when I get to traffic stops, not whilst driving, that's just insane.

I know some people don't take this so seriously because everyone in Jakarta does it, even those idiots at sinetrons do it (driving while on their mobiles), so it's all a matter of people assuming something as normal when in fact it's not!!!!

Funny that's how Jakarta has been - what's not normal is now normal and what's normal is no longer normal.

Like, you can get abused on the road if you drive 80km/hour on the freeway's fastest lane even though that is actually the maximum speed stated by the government.

Crazy.

Ivy said...

omg...can't believe how irresponsible these people are. I mean, come on...many people lives are depended upon her. At least have the decency to wait till the trip is over before playing with the phone. Geez...

Anonymous said...

There's always something that goes wrong, isn't it? I mean everything has been designed to work on its on way and then a retarded bus driver just took out her cellphone and started talking while driving, no wonder the accident rate here was so high.

My boyfriend once got fined for doing the same thing and the amount of fine that he paid assured him that he would no longer do such thing in the future if he didn't want to declare bankruptcy

tere616.blogspot.com said...

Well, am speechless, don't know which one I've to blame. But, remembering the accident of my colleague, which happened several months ago, I may say that both of the Transjakarta bus driver and my friend were guilty.

My friend crossed the street without even pay attention to the bussway lane, whilst the transjakarta also did the same one. He thought that it was his lane, so he ignored the traffic.

Back to your story, most of the time, we know but we ignore :-(

RusmanZA said...

salam kenal ibu elyani..
mao koment sedikit aja :
drivernya dah hapal kali sama tikungan-tikungan jalan busway dan juga dia berasumsi jalannya bebas hambatan ..karena khusus busway aja...jangankan sambil ber HP sambil tiduran juga bisa...hehehe

salam
rusman

Rob Baiton said...

Personal responsibility and hands free...

Last time I was in Singapore I noticed that all the taxi drivers were hands free for their mobile phone calls.

Anonymous said...

no wonder many people were killed in busway accidents. one of the victims was an Italian - see: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2007/08/16/italian-killed-tragic-accident.html-0

Unknown said...

how irresponsible! lack of penalty juga sih ya...


salam kenal...aku ketemu blog kamu dari lidia. cool blog! loving it!

Anonymous said...

After reading the comments, I just remembered the incident that I witnessed myself on Busway.

During peak hours, a lot of people either try to get on or off, and we're talking A LOT, and there was this one time when this woman couldn't get out on time because it was so crowded on the bus, that when she was halfway stepping outside the bus she was stuck in between the bus's sliding door and it was already moving!!!!!

Man oh man I was in horror and shocked to death (nearly). Luckily the driver noticed it and stopped the bus straight away.

Anonymous said...

hi Elyani,

i have been busy, too, now that Christmas mails and packages are growing by the day.

in reply to your article, it is the reason why i don't mind not carrying cell phones with me while driving. people would call anytime regardless of what we are doing or where we are, and it is up to us drivers to learn to ignore the calls when it is unsafe to answer. it won't hurt the callers to wait a few minutes.