being selfish in the street

I know that living in Jakarta should have made me ‘immune’ to traffic jam. But the fact is… I’m not. At least, not to this one-terrible-traffic-jam-that-never-happened-in-the-vicinity-before. 

Usually, we, bikers, are just lining up in the valley, waiting our turn to get to the main road while driving very slowly. No need to stop or turn off our engine for that. But today, the traffic was so terrific that I eventually turned off my motorbike engine, took my smartphone out of my pocket and played some games out of it.

In fact, I still had the chance to take a picture of the traffic jam using my smartphone.

There were already that much of bikers when I arrived at the scene. Most people would probably just turn back and try to look for another way to get to wherever their destination is, but I just sat on my motorbike and waited peacefully. Oh, crap, that’s obviously a lie. There’s no way I could just wait there peacefully and did nothing. I waited there impatiently. Like a child who wanted to rush to get some candies, I craned my neck to see what’s going on while blaming on whoever I could blame; the bikers, the cars, the road, etc.

When the line was getting longer and my patience wore off, I asked a man besides me, “What went wrong?”

I somehow knew that we both didn’t have any clue of what’s going on. But I couldn’t help but ask him to kill my boredom.

He simply replied “Dunno!”

…and we waited there again. In silence this time.

After waiting for another boring minutes, the traffic jam was finally digested. As I managed to get to the end of the valley, I figured out that it was caused by several big busses that stopped just next to the valley.

I blamed the bus drivers for parking carelessly in the narrow street. I know that they had their necessity in the vicinity, but they should have considered others too. Because of them, many people came late to their work.

Not being selfish is one of the most important rules while driving.

#notetomyself