Traffic in Indonesia

I was walking home from the university today and while I crossed the street, I was reminded of a recent article in the Jakarta Post. The writer, an Indonesian, was recalling a conversation he had had with an Australian who was frustrated with how Indonesians drive. The Indonesian responded by suggesting a difference between how drivers think in the two countries. In Australia, as in N. America, drivers aim to keep a safe distance between their car and the cars around them. The thinking is, if the car ahead brakes suddenly, the space between the cars gives time to react.

The writer suggested that in Indonesia, drivers think differently, adopting a 'fill-in-the-space' mentality. According to this way of thinking, a space in traffic is room to drive. If a driver wants to move into my lane, all the driver needs is enough room to maneuver the corner of their car in front of me. I will then be expected to make room. I can make room for the other driver by either stopping or moving over into the lane beside me. And in keeping with the fill-in-the-gap rule, the lane beside me doesn't have to be for traffic going in the same direction. It is, therefore, common to have on-coming traffic in one's own lane. To resolve this meeting of traffic heading in opposite directions, the rule is, yes, to fill-in-the-gap. That is, if I am in my lane and there is traffic heading towards me, I am expected to use any space beside me to make room for that on-coming traffic. Therefore, lane markings really are mere suggestions. It is rare to see traffic stopped at lights lined up according to the marked lanes. If cars are turning right at the light (remember Indonesians drive on the left hand side), they will often straddle the middle line. At traffic lights, two lane roads often have three or four cars across. Two 'lanes' for cars turning, two 'lanes' for cars going straight. Driving safely in Indonesia is not a matter of knowing the official rules of the road, but knowing how customs, like fill-in-the-gap, function. At first one might think that this custom is dangerous and would result in many traffic accidents, but there is so much traffic here, people just aren't driving that fast.

What brought all of this to mind was that I have finally grown accustomed to walking across intersections. Traffic lights here operate in a rotating manner. That is, at a four-way intersection, only one way has a green light, with the other three ways waiting. Sometimes the green light moves clockwise, sometimes counter-clockwise. (I haven't figured that one out yet.) Crossing the street therefore requires awareness of who has a green light and who will have it next. Furthermore, traffic can always turn left. However, traffic doesn't have to stop in order to turn left on a red light. Here, again, we have the fill-in-the-gap custom. As one is turning left, one checks to see if there is any room, and if there is, one proceeds, even if this means that traffic with the green light has to slow down or even stop. So when I am driving through an intersection, I need to keep an eye on the cars around me, but also any cars that might be turning left into my lane.

But back to crossing the intersection. I was standing on the sidewalk and when the light changed, I started to cross. However, motorcycles were turning left, fast. In the past I have made the mistake of stopping, or even worse, backing up. This is a mistake because it runs counter to the fill-in-the-gap custom, and drivers don't know how to respond. What I did today was to just keep moving forward, and the motorcycle drivers did what they are used to, filling in the gap around me.