Koalisi Pejalan Kaki (Pedestrians Coalition), a volunteer group campaigning for pedestrian-friendly sidewalks in Indonesia, has been relentless lately. After their protests pushed the Jakarta government to launch a month-long crackdown on motorcycles illegally driving on sidewalks, they have also demonstrated how even cars can illegally make use of sidewalks in Jakarta.
Today, the coalition uploaded a video of their founder, Alfred Sitorus, confronting a Blue Bird taxi driver who had parked his car on a sidewalk on Jalan Wahid Hasyim, Central Jakarta. The video is approximately 6 minutes long, but it could’ve been much shorter had the driver just accepted that he was wrong.
The video is essentially Sitorus repeatedly telling the driver that he has parked his car illegally on the sidewalk, only to be rebutted by the driver who said that he did not park his car and that he was just “waiting” while he was going to get coffee and cigarettes.
When Sitorus tries to make the point that the car is, by definition, parked, as it’s stationary and its engine is switched off, the driver just looks at him dumbfounded before accusing Sitorus of making his life difficult and saying that it shouldn’t bother pedestrians if there is a car parked on the sidewalk.
In the text accompanying the post, Koalisi Pejalan Kaki tagged Blue Bird Group, the taxi company that employs the driver, to notify them of his illegal parking. The company has not yet released any statement regarding the video.
