A friend of mine, we'll call her Slicky, was involved in every drivers worst nightmare 2 weeks ago in Denpasar. I have her permission to report this.
Slicky was just getting out of her nice white car parked on the left-hand side of the road. She says she only opened the driver's side door a few inches to look back at approaching traffic.
Well a 49 year old Javanese father of 2 older children and his Javanese wife on their motorbike where not only approaching, they were there. Stripping the partially opened car door both were thrown to the ground - I don't know how quickly they were traveling but both were injured. Slicky, as one does, jumped out of her car and attempted to help but was immediately told by the gathered crowd to get back in her car and stay there - advice which she followed. Attempts were made to get the man, who was more seriously injured, a ride to the local hospital (which Slicky also offered to do) but no willing ambulance was found amongst the gathering. At this time a western passing tourist who maintained he was a doctor immediately insisted that the man not be moved and to wait for a real ambulance to come. Which it did.
At this stage the details get a little sketchy but Slicky was then taken in her car to the local cop-shop in Denpasar where she was made to wait.
Slicky is fraught as you can well imagine but keeping a cool head she informs all the people she can think might be of assistance in her situation where she is and what is happening as far as she can tell - including an old friend that is a lawyer.
Next thing Slicky learns is that she is being sent to the main Cop-Shop in Kerbokan because the injured man has died on the way to Sangla Hospital and it is now a much more serious incident.
I'm only going to bullet point the proceeding otherwise this will turn into a 20 page book and it being Sunday there is a lot of Bintang to get through before the day is done.
Slicky gets all lawyered up and after spending the night in jail finds that the cops are not at all happy about this as they say it "complicates" the whole problem and makes it harder for it to be easily resolved - make of that what you will. Slicky tell lawyer to bugger off.
Before Slicky can get out of the slams she has to sit down with the family of the deceased and try and work out a resolution to the accident and it's resulting effect on everyone's life. This is standard procedure in Indonesian law for more serious incidents and however unpleasant has to be got through. I believe the police have a mediator on hand (please correct me if you know better) but in any event Slicky had someone that could translate for her and the result was a payment to the family of IDR 35 juta - it would have been more but the deceased contributed to his own downfall by not wearing a helmet.
There are, of course, other payments of various single figure juta amounts to various officials for expediting the process and those appear to be still ongoing.
I know what I would have done in similar circumstances and I will continue to advise that the situation would have looked much different from a bar in Perth, London or New York and that Slicky's argument that she want to continue living in Bali will undoubtedly have further unpleasant repercussions for her. I hope I am wrong.
Slicky was just getting out of her nice white car parked on the left-hand side of the road. She says she only opened the driver's side door a few inches to look back at approaching traffic.
Well a 49 year old Javanese father of 2 older children and his Javanese wife on their motorbike where not only approaching, they were there. Stripping the partially opened car door both were thrown to the ground - I don't know how quickly they were traveling but both were injured. Slicky, as one does, jumped out of her car and attempted to help but was immediately told by the gathered crowd to get back in her car and stay there - advice which she followed. Attempts were made to get the man, who was more seriously injured, a ride to the local hospital (which Slicky also offered to do) but no willing ambulance was found amongst the gathering. At this time a western passing tourist who maintained he was a doctor immediately insisted that the man not be moved and to wait for a real ambulance to come. Which it did.
At this stage the details get a little sketchy but Slicky was then taken in her car to the local cop-shop in Denpasar where she was made to wait.
Slicky is fraught as you can well imagine but keeping a cool head she informs all the people she can think might be of assistance in her situation where she is and what is happening as far as she can tell - including an old friend that is a lawyer.
Next thing Slicky learns is that she is being sent to the main Cop-Shop in Kerbokan because the injured man has died on the way to Sangla Hospital and it is now a much more serious incident.
I'm only going to bullet point the proceeding otherwise this will turn into a 20 page book and it being Sunday there is a lot of Bintang to get through before the day is done.
Slicky gets all lawyered up and after spending the night in jail finds that the cops are not at all happy about this as they say it "complicates" the whole problem and makes it harder for it to be easily resolved - make of that what you will. Slicky tell lawyer to bugger off.
Before Slicky can get out of the slams she has to sit down with the family of the deceased and try and work out a resolution to the accident and it's resulting effect on everyone's life. This is standard procedure in Indonesian law for more serious incidents and however unpleasant has to be got through. I believe the police have a mediator on hand (please correct me if you know better) but in any event Slicky had someone that could translate for her and the result was a payment to the family of IDR 35 juta - it would have been more but the deceased contributed to his own downfall by not wearing a helmet.
There are, of course, other payments of various single figure juta amounts to various officials for expediting the process and those appear to be still ongoing.
I know what I would have done in similar circumstances and I will continue to advise that the situation would have looked much different from a bar in Perth, London or New York and that Slicky's argument that she want to continue living in Bali will undoubtedly have further unpleasant repercussions for her. I hope I am wrong.