Desi Anwar , Jakarta | Thu, 03/13/2008 1:34 AM | Opinion
That the central government quickly shifted the blame to local administrations will not repair the damage that has been done. The government's quick retreat to that old favorite, the blame game, is further cause for concern about the prospects of eventually winning the fight against poverty, because the government is apparently part of the problem instead of the solution.
He sticks his head out the window. The smell of gas grows stronger. By the time he realizes that the bus has sprung a gas leak, it is too late. A nearby car driver stuck in the traffic throws a lit cigarette butt in the bus' direction.
What follows is a loud bang as the bus bursts into flames. And then muted screams as more than two dozen bus passengers trapped in the bus fight in vain to exit. But the doors are closed. In seconds the bus explodes, sending fire balls in all directions.
There is an inferno as nearby cars separated only by inches in the bumper-to-bumper traffic explode in a chain reaction like a string of Chinese firecrackers at a Betawi wedding. Within minutes the entire main road is a scene from hell or the film Towering Inferno. The death toll far exceeds the deaths caused by car accidents in China in the last decade. The cause: a leak in the gas tank that was carelessly overlooked.
The second scenario is somewhat similar, though it is more like the film Speed or some other action flick where cars are being chased the wrong way down a one-way street. Picture the same hapless TransJakarta bus speeding down its normal "busway" lane, but this time going against the traffic.
All drivers have been instructed that very morning by the public transportation authorities they are to drive the wrong way in a "contra flow", or in layman's term, like a mad or drunk person.
The reason supposedly is to discourage private motorists from soiling the sanctity of the "busway" with their unwelcome presence and holding up the traffic on the bus routes.
Unfortunately other road users are not made aware of this experiment in creative driving and this fact, combined with the driver's confusion as to what he should do at intersections, plus the traffic officer's confusion as to which side of the road he needs to channel traffic, soon results in a pile-up that is as noisy as it is bloody.
Collisions follow crashes as head-on traffic smashes into our oncoming bus. Underneath the pile-up is our poor traffic officer who dies not knowing what hit him. It would be risible if Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock were there.
PLEASE ADD TO THE ABOVE SCENARIO OUR TROOP OF "BIKE TO WORK" CYCLISTS WHO, WITHOUT A PROPER BIKE LANE IN THE CITY, GET PULVERIZED IN THE MAYHEM. DESPITE HAVING THE NERVES OF A SUICIDE BOMBER OR KAMIKAZE PILOT, THESE BIKERS BECOME THE SOGGY LETTUCE IN A TIN CAN SANDWICH, MOWED DOWN BY CONTRA-FLOW BUSSES AND CARS TRYING TO ENTER THE "BUSWAY" AND CLIPPED BY MOTORBIKES TRYING TO RUN PEDESTRIANS OFF THE PAVEMENT.
FAR FROM BEING A HEALTHY SPORT, BIKE-TO-WORK IS A HIGHLY DANGEROUS ONE IN THIS CITY. IF OTHER CARS DON'T KILL YOU, SOONER OR LATER EMPHYSEMA CAUSED BY JAKARTA'S AWFUL POLLUTION WILL. HOWEVER, EITHER WAY, IT MIGHT BE COMFORTING TO KNOW YOU ARE DOING GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.
Other horrible ways to die on the streets of Jakarta include being drowned by flash floods while on the way to the airport trying to escape the city -- because it has been raining non-stop in Bogor, which in turn has caused the trash-choked rivers to burst their banks and send three-meter-high floodwater in a biblical deluge promptly sending everyone to a watery grave.
Those who survive the flood will eventually succumb to a pernicious form of leptospirosis, caused by the especially deadly urine of mutant city rats feeding on toxic non-organic waste, and die an even more gruesome death or become ugly zombies like the film I Am Legend.
And if you manage to survive all that, sooner or later the big black hole will suck you down. You know, the ones that appear in the middle of the main roads overnight that Governor Fauzi Bowo says are caused by freak weather patterns.
The governor believes there is nothing he can do besides allow the holes to get bigger and bigger until we all fall in, like Alice In Wonderland down the rabbit hole.
The writer is a journalist and TV host based in Jakarta. She can be contacted at
http://quotidian.desianwar.net.
FAR FROM BEING A HEALTHY SPORT, BIKE-TO-WORK IS A HIGHLY DANGEROUS ONE IN THIS CITY. IF OTHER CARS DON'T KILL YOU, SOONER OR LATER EMPHYSEMA CAUSED BY JAKARTA'S AWFUL POLLUTION WILL. HOWEVER, EITHER WAY, IT MIGHT BE COMFORTING TO KNOW YOU ARE DOING GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. 
