ROAD ACCIDENTS IN INDONESIA

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that almost half of the 1.27 million people who die in road traffic accidents every year around the world were pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists. A study has also revealed that most of the people who were killed in road accidents in Indonesia were riders of two or three-wheel vehicles, which is about 61%. Next were pedestrians (15%), cyclists (13%), passengers of 4-wheel vehicles (4%) and drivers of 4-wheel vehicles (3%), as recorded by National Police in 2008, in three provinces. In spite of the high growth rate of traffic accidents in Indonesia, the data and information acquisition remains difficult. Data or information may be collected from many different sources such as the police department, hospitals, and also insurance companies. However, different figures may come up due to somewhat different definitions of accident victims, e.g., the police department may define death/casualty as a person who dies at the accident scene and at the time of accident. While a hospital may have a different definition on such a death/casualty, in which itudoes not have to be person who dies on the spot and at the time of an accident. Such a person may die in hospital after sometime, whereas such definition may be adopted by anuinsurance company. Figures of accidents in many cities in Indonesia, especially big cities such as Jakarta, may have similar trends due to inherent fundamental problems of an imbalanceubetween supply and demand of traffic systems. Furthermore, data and information about accidents presented is based on reports from three representative provinces, namely Jakarta, Jambi and West Java.