Jakartan drivers tend to be disoriented by Bandung’s many one-way roads, and one driver who went the wrong way recently had the misfortune of crashing his car into a motorcycle belonging to a member of a leather-vest-wearing motorcycle community.
Early Sunday morning, Fajar, a Jakarta citizen who was driving his Toyota Avanza in Bandung, took a wrong turn towards Jalan Merdeka and drove against the flow of traffic. On the one-way road at the time were a group of men driving their moge (an Indonesian portmanteau for motor, meaning motorcycle, and gede, meaning large).
“At the same time there were moge drivers coming from Jalan Merdeka, and a collision was unavoidable,” Head of Bandung Police’s Traffic Unit Agung Reza told Detik today.
A photo that went viral from the incident suggested that Fajar’s Avanza collided head on with a moge, though it looked like the latter surprisingly did much more damage on the former, proving that huge bikes are as tough as they are considered cool by overcompensating men.
Tabrakan Di Bandung Antara Moge VS Avanza https://t.co/tlMaJCaiQ2 pic.twitter.com/42JJAYJIPj
— Bonsai Biker (@BonsaiBiker3) September 16, 2018
Even so, a video also went viral showing one member of the community punching Fajar repeatedly — at times in the face — shortly after the collision.
https://twitter.com/ezkisuyanto/status/1042011096654045185
Collision between an Avanza and a moge. The moge driver beat up the Avanza driver. They have expensive things but are cheap on morals, resulting in this
Despite the incident attracting the attention of the police, neither party decided to press charges against the other and the matter has been resolved privately.
The moge driver who assaulted Fajar was identified as Pegy Diar, El Presidente, or leader, of the motorcycle community Bikers Brotherhood Motorcycles [sic] Club Indonesia (BBMC). He claims he punched Fajar because he was at first adamant he was not at fault for the collision.
“It’s because he didn’t think he was wrong at first, so I was annoyed and I hit him out of reflex. It didn’t last long. I have also apologized,” Pegy said.
Fajar confirmed that he initially thought he was right because his navigation app told him to turn into Jalan Merdeka, not knowing it was a one-way road.
