What’s Indonesian Twitter without some good, viral motorcycle taxi content every now and then? While many stories involving app-based ojol — as they’re locally known — tend to be wholesome or sad, one of the latest videos to go viral is rather hilarious — as if it was written for a comedy sketch.
Yesterday, Twitter user Haris Dhiya uploaded a video of a motorcyclist and someone who appears to be an ojol driver for Gojek in the midst of a heated argument. According to Haris, the video was taken in front of his office in Duren Sawit, East Jakarta.
Ojol Vs Pengendara Moge 250cc arogan, pagi ini di depan kantor sekitaran duren sawit. pic.twitter.com/ebEcYVhFg0
— Haris (@hrsdhy) February 18, 2020
It’s not clear at first what the argument was about, though it was apparent that the man in the ojol jacket tried to stop the motorcyclist from driving away. Another man appeared, motioning for the motorcyclist to pull over.
The “ojol driver” then takes off his jacket, revealing a police uniform underneath. He continued scolding the motorcyclist, who appeared to give in and finally pulled over.
At the time of writing, the video has received more than 1.2 million views, 7.7K retweets, and 11K likes.
Duren Sawit Police Chief Agus Sumarno identified the ojol driver/police officer to be Ridwan Simanungkalit, who heads a police post in the Pondok Kopi sub-district.
East Jakarta Police Chief Arie Ardiyan said Ridwan wore a jacket that belonged to his friend, a real ojol driver. At the time, the motorcyclist attempted to run away after he was stopped over an unspecified traffic violation.
“[Ridwan’s] duty is to form a good relationship with ojol drivers [in his jurisdiction], so he’s really close to them,” Arie said today, as quoted by Detik.
Arie noted that Ridwan has the authority to give verbal warnings to traffic violators but he’s not allowed to ticket them.
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