As Lebaran rolls to an end I cannot help thinking about going back to work and the same tedious commute with all the attendant miseries.
I know I should not keep harping on about it but, here, in Jakarta it’s not whether you will be injured in a traffic accident but rather – when.
Ramadan brings out the worst in drivers, awake all night, pissed off because they have to go to work and waiting ultimately for Id Ul Fitri and Lebaran to get back to the village and party, party, party.
Combine these aspects with the usual Indonesian lack of care and attention to driving and you have the ultimate disaster movie waiting to happen.
I remember the car crash scenes in the Blues Brothers movie were billed at the time as the most expensive motoring stunts in Hollywood history. I’ve got news for Hollywood; they could have done it all a lot cheaper and a lot more realistically here on the Cikampek Toll Road. First take was not good enough, no problem, just go and film the same mayhem the next morning.
It seems if there is a space the size of a fag packet between two cars it is mandatory for some fuckwit in a Kijang to barrel across three lanes of traffic to squeeze into it, usually with the window open and waving their right arm limp wristedly demanding right of way.
The hard shoulder lends itself well as an additional “Faster Lane”, the police cannot be arsed doing anything other than driving with their lights flashing while squeaking siren noises in their vehicle (presumably the real siren was stolen), trucks laden with empty chicken crates race back to Central Java for re-fills and buses packed to the gunwales with early holidaymakers race each other to be first to arrive in butt fuck no-where with their passengers.
Bearing in mind the sheer volume of traffic at this time of year, the police and military are placing snipers around 22 critically strategic spots to “give the public a sense of security when they travel.” I don’t know about you but snipers anywhere would generally make me feel less secure.
There is an estimate that over the next few days around 16 million people will be travelling to spend Id Ul Fitri with their families
”Head of Police Headquarters for Operational Affairs, Brig Gen Edhi Susilo said police in the efforts to secure the Lebaran festivities would launch an operation code-named "Operasi Ketupat 2008" which would be reinforced with about 43,700 personnel.
As the number of two-wheel vehicle travellers is expected to reach 2.5 million, police have made anticipatory preparations to escort them.”
Well they all fucked off and Jakarta for the past week has been ace. Me, I was the ultimate lazy bastard and did ZERO…….
No apologies for not posting either!
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