Re: trafic deaths in the past 5 months
Jumping back to the original post in this thread. I find the whole road toll issue in Bali (and in Indonesia as a whole) absolutely heartbreaking and part of that is that so much of the toll is so easily preventable.
I find it rich and quite dishonest of the police to issue forth statements about the toll when so much of the solution rests with them and they do nothing.
Sit at any intersection and watch the overloaded motorcycles roar past police who do nothing. Bikes with 5 people on them veering from lane to lane, sometimes with kids standing; cars roaring through long red traffic lights; cars and trucks passing on the inside; following less than a meter at high speed behind the car in front; overtaking in every insane way you can think off; kids sitting on the backs of trucks or standing in them; grossly overloaded trucks and vehicles that would be pulled off the roads every where else in Asia roaring along; motorbikes pulling into traffic without looking at speed.
The police ignore every sort of infraction you can think of, and then release statements about the death toll, which they could halve overnight .
All of this, coupled with the selling of driver's licenses and the lack of driver education from the police and the government means that a huge proportion of the driving population simply have no idea of how to drive.
The introduction of a basic road code, which apparently does exist but no-one has any idea what it actually is, and the enforcement of that, coupled with an ongoing effective education campaign using TV and media would do wonders. A list of of ten basic rules which, distributed to motorists with a date for enforced compliance would slash the road toll. Enforced stopping at Stop signs and red lights, driver testing, a right hand rule, and the like. And, in the most honest way, these could even provide a revenue stream for the Police Dept.
If the police actually cared about the road deaths of course.....
Couple that with the very basic road maintenance..fixing traffic light bulbs, clearing the curbing stones that sit on the road for weeks after a car hits the curb, painting correct road markings (how long do arrows that point the wrong direction have to be on the road north of Sanur). A friend tells me that budgets are allocated for these things but simply disappear.
I've driven across Asia and nobody else seems to find these basic things that tricky. Why Bali?
