..Here the overwhelming culture of the road is a motorbike culture. The idea that you wouldn't look out for motorbikes is unthinkable..
Well, they
should look out for
all traffic, not just motorbikes and often they don't. Something happens when some people take to the roads. Many never look left or right when pulling out of a lane into a "street". I see it all the time and have had many near misses (them almost running into my car, or me almost running over them by "accident").
Add to that that many locals seem to love to cut corners. Did I mention overtaking (or should I say "undertaking"), on the left-hand side of traffic?
Of those who actually wear a "helmet" of some kind, many don't do them up. Maybe these things are a by-product of Balinese Hindu beliefs - like, death is not the end.
Get killed and you'll get reincarnated.
Those who ride at night without lights do so for various reasons:
1) the lights are broken and don't work
2) saves the battery
3) think everybody should be able to see them so what's the problem
4) they only care about "laws" within their own banjars
5) they couldn't care less
..For my money, they should lower the age to 15 and then strictly enforce that..
Driving anything here is neither for the faint-hearted nor the inexperienced. Young teens are not particularly known for their powers of concentration, judgement and "common sense".
Lowering the age to 15 is a ridiculous proposition (IMHO). Why not lower it to 10 or 12? What's the difference?
When the existing road "laws" aren't being enforced as it is, what's going to change?
Thousands of people are already driving/riding around without "licences" and many vehicles aren't even registered properly.
..Technically, they should be doing all that right now during the process to get their licence..
They're not. "Technically" is one thing and "really" is another.
Many get their "licences" without doing any tests of any kind. The main police licensing place in Denpasar, (actually Kerobokan), has one room fitted out with a bunch of computers.
Those trying to do the right thing subject themselves to a form of torture, trying to answer multiple-choice questions that don't reflect actual conditions and unwritten practices on real roads.
Theory is fine, but survival more so.
The "smart" ones pay some extra money to the police (or one of their agents), do
no tests, get their fingerprints and photo taken and zoom off into the wild blue yonder.
Pull into the police station's parking lot and, depending what day it is, you can be surrounded by licence touts.
In all my years of living in Bali (about 21 now), I've never had to do any kinds of tests. One time, way back in the early 1970s (when I first came to Bali), I had to do a test for a motorbike licence.
It was early days and probably quite novel for the Balinese police at the time. The written part of the "test" was in Indonesian. No problem. If I didn't understand the question, the police told me which right answers to tick.
The physical riding test involved dodging and weaving through a few plastic hats without knocking any over. I remember a young Australian girl trying it - she knocked some over. The police moved them further apart and she finally managed.
If you care about your child, don't let him loose on a motorbike in Bali. Bali is definitely
not the place to learn driving for anybody, especially a 15 -year old.
I know of several expat's kids who've been killed over the years. Very unpleasant. And if they kill or injure somebody else, it all becomes even more complicated.